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SCOTTISH GARDENS 



A REPKESENTATIVE SELECTION OF DIFFERENT 
TYPES, OLD AND NEW 



Scottish Gardens 



BEING 



A Representative SelecSlion of different 
Types, Old and New 



THE RIGHT HON. 

SIR HERBERT MAXWELL 

BT., F.R.S., D.C.L., LL.D. 

ILLUSTRATED BV 

MARY G. W. WILSON 

MEMBER OF THE PASTEL SOCIETY AND OF THE SOCIETY OF SCOTTISH ARTISTS 



A vous, troupe legere, 

Qui d'aile passagere 

Par le monde volez, 

J'ofFre ces violettes, 

Ces lis et ces fleurettes, 

Et ces roses icy — 

Ces merveillettes roses — 

Tout freschement ecloses, 

Et ces oeillets aussi. — J. du Bellay 



NEW YORK 
LONGMANS, GREEN & CO. 
LONDON : EDWARD ARNOLD 

1908 

(All righti reserved) 



SALUT 

Strow mee the crrounde with daffadownrlillies, 
And cowslips and kingcups and loved lillies; 

The pretty pawnee 

And the chevisaunce 
Shall match with the fajrre floure delice. 

Shepherd's Calendar. 



I'A'IK 

Concerning Sfxrrri.sH Garuions in (jIknkkai. - - - 1 

Arugowan, Rknkukwhhirk ------ 23 

Will TKIlOt'SK, MllM.inillAN - - - - - - :5I 

MoNHKITH, WlOToWNSHIKK - - . - - 40 

Gaktincauek, J'kuthshire - 4G 

Princks Strkict TJardens, Ii]i)iNiinR(;M - - - - 54 

Baberton, Mmi.di iiiAN ------- 59 

PoLi.OK, Renkrkw.shike 61 

Stonefield, Argyllshire 69 

Castle Kennedy, Wigtownshire ----- 74 

The Hirsel, Berwickshire 84 

South Bantaskine, Stirlingshire 88 

Colinton House, Miulothian 91 

Malleny, Midlothian - 95 

Corrour, Inverness-shire 97 

Kellie Castle, Fife 104 

Auchencruive, Ayrshire 109 

Barskimming, Ayrshire 114 

vii 



CONTENTS 



PAQE 



Cawdor Castle, Nairnshire 122 

Manse of Fyvie, Aberdeenshire - - - - - 130 

Sunderland Hall, Selkirkshire - - - - - 139 

Balcaskie, Fife - - - - - - - - 147 

Balcarrks, Fife - - - - - - - - 151 

Carnock, Stirlingshire - 156 

Kelburne Castle, Ayrshire - - - - - 161 

Culzean, Ayrshire 167 

Leckie, Stirlingshire - - - - - - - 177 

Dalzell Castle, Lanarkshire - - - - - 180 

Barncluith, Lanarkshire ------ 186 

DuNUdBiN, Sutherland 191 

Stobhall, 1'erthshire ------- 202 

Raeden House, Aberdeenshire, ----- 205 

Cocker's Nursery, Aberdeen - _ . - - 208 

Smeaton-Hepburn, Haddingtonshire - - - - 212 

APPENDIX A 

Species of Rhododendron suitable to the Climate of 

THE West of Scotland - - - - - 217 

APPENDIX B 

Uthkk Shrubs which have proved hardy in Scotland 223 

APPENDIX C 

Decorative Shrubs, Herbs and Bulbs - - - - 229 

viii 



LIST OF PLATES 

/ 

I. Malleny, Midlothian - - - Frontispiece 

II. Ardgowan, Renfrewshire - - To face p. 24 

III. Whitehouse, Midlothian - - - „ 34 

IV. Monreith, Wigtownshire - - - ,,40 
V. Gartincaber, Perthshire - - - „ 46 

VI. Princes Street Gardens, Edinburgh - „ 54 

VII. Baberton, Midlothian - . . „ 60' 

VIII. PoLLOK, Renfrewshire . - . „ 66 

IX. Stonefield, Argyllshire - - . „ 70 

X. Castle Kennedy. Wigtownshire - ,, 74 

XL The Hirsel, Berwickshire - - ,, 84 ■ 

XII. South Bantaskine, Stirlingshire - ,, 88 

XIII. Colinton House, Midlothian - - ,, 92 - 

XIV. CoRRouR, Invernesshire - - - ,, 100 '^ 
XV. Kellie Castle, Fife - - - - ,,104 

XVI. AUCHENCRUIVE, AYRSHIRE - - - ,,110 

XVII. Barskimming, Ayrshire - - - ,,114 

XVIII. Cawdor Castle, Nairnshire - - ,,122 

ix 



LIST OF PLATES 



XIX. Manse of Fyvie, Aberdeenshire 

XX. Sunderland Hall, Selkirkshire 

XXI. Balcaskie, Fife 

XXII. Balcarres, Fife 

XXIII. Carnock, Stirlingshire - 

XXIV. Kelburne Castle, Ayrshire - 
XXV. CuLZEAN, Ayrshire 

XXVI. Leckie, Stirlingshire 

XXVII. Dalzell Castle, Lanarkshire 

XXVIII. Barncluith, Lanarkshire 

XXIX. Dunrobin, Sutherland - 

XXX. Stobhall, Perthshire 

XXXI. Raeden House, Aberdeenshire 

XXXII. Cocker's Nursery, Aberdeen - 



To face p. 130 



140' 



148 
152' 



156 

162 

170 ' 

178' 

180' 

186' 

192 

202 ' 

206 

210 



SCOTTISH GARDENS 

CONCERNING SCOTTISH GARDENS 
IN GENERAL 




FTER the withdrawal of the Roman 
legions from Britain in the fifth 
century, to quote the graphic words 
of the late Dr. W. F. Skene, "the 
British Isles seemed, as it were, to 
retire again into the recesses of that western ocean 
from which they had emerged in the reign of the 
Emperor Claudius. "^ In the following century, 
Procopius, writing from Constantinople a scanty 
description of the lost Roman provinces of Britain, 
said that he believed that part of the island 
nearest Gaul was still inhabited and fertile, but 
that it was divided from the rest of the island by 
a wall, beyond which was a region infested by 
wild beasts, with an atmosphere fatal to human 
life, wherefore it was tenanted only by the spirits 
of the departed. Now the wall referred to was 

' Celtic Scotland, i. 1 14. 
A 1 



SCOTTISH GARDENS 

probably that rampai-t erected by Lollius Urbicus 
for the Emperor Autoniuus Pius about a.d. 140. 
It stretched between the Firths of Forth and Clyde, 
and connected the detached forts built by Julius 
Agricola seventy years before ; but the reference 
may have been to the earlier wall, that great 
fortification drawn by the Emperor Hadrian from 
the Tyne to the Solway, roughly parallel with the 
line dividing England from Scotland at the present 
day. 

Whichever barrier Procopius had in mind, 
whether it was the whole of modern Scotland, or 
only the Highlands, that he included in his un- 
complimentary estimate of the climate, the fifteen 
centuries which have run their course or nearly so, 
since he laid down his pen have not served wholly 
to efface the unfavourable estimate of Scottish 
seasons entertained by many travelled, and all 
untra veiled, southerners. "As in the Northerne 
parts of England," wrote Fynes Moryson in the 
seventeenth century, " they have small pleasantnes, 
goodnesse, or abundance of Fruites and Flowers, so 
in Scotland they must have lesse, or none at all." 

It was Dr. Johnson, if I mistake not, and if 
not he, then some other equally veracious tourist, 
who declared that Scots farmers could only grow 
barley under glass ; and really this assertion is not 
one whit further from the truth than many of 
the statements one may see gravely repeated in 
gardening journals. Advice is frequently based, 

2 



SCOTTISH GARDENS IN GENERAL 

even in high class works on horticulture, upon the 
assumption that, because Scotland lies a few hundred 
miles nearer the North Pole than do the Home 
Counties, it is useless to attempt to cultivate any 
except the hardiest shrubs and herbs beyond the 
Tweed. The reader receives the impression of a 
rigorous climate, with intensely cold winters and 
sunless summers ; and that impression, as regards 
summer, at least, is often confirmed to those who 
postpone their visit to Scotland till Parliament rises, 
perhaps late in August, after the Lammas floods 
have soaked the land and the evenings have turned 
damp and chill. But those who know the north 
country in June and July do not need to be 
warned against such an erroneous conception, or to 
be told that the Scottish soil and climate are quite 
as favourable to floral display as are those of any 
part of England. 

Nevertheless, speaking broadly, the climates of 
the two realms are difi'erent in character, and 
it behoves the gardener to take this into account 
in furnishing his borders and shrubberies. It may 
help him to do so, if he has a general under- 
standing of the mechanism of climate, so to speak. 
It certainly would have saved the present writer 
from many blunders had he been guided earlier by 
a better knowledge of the principles of meteorology, 
and from expense and disappointment incurred by 
attempting to cultivate unsuitable species of shrubs 
and herbs. 

3 



SCOTTISH GARDENS 

The first thing to lay to heart is that Great 
Britain is divided, climatically, not so much into 
north and south, as nearly all horticultural books 
describe it, as into east and west. Certain plants 
which perish from winter cold near London and in 
the Midlands, flourish luxuriantly on the western 
sections of the counties of Inverness and Ross. This 
is visually explained as the direct influence of the 
Gulf Stream upon the seaboard climate of the British 
Isles. Nobody wants to speak disrespectfully of 
the Gulf Stream ; but hydrographers have difi"ered 
among themselves in estimating the extent of its 
effect upon the land temperature of Western Europe, 
and perhaps the populai" tendency has been to ex- 
aggerate it. Issuing from the Gulf of Florida, with 
a surface temperature of 80° F., this great current 
of hot water flows eastward along the banks of 
Newfoundland, whence it is separated by the cold 
and southward flowing current of Labrador. At 
about 40° west longitude, a well-marked branch of 
the Gulf Stream turns north and north-westward 
upon the coast of Greenland and is lost in Bafiin's 
Bay. The main cuiTent divides again at about 
25° W., 47° N., the greater moiety bending southward 
to form the North African current, which laves the 
shores of Portugal and Morocco, finally turning west- 
ward off Cape Verde and heading back to the 
Carribean Sea. What is left of the original stream 
holds a north-eastward course towards the western 
shores of Northern Europe, but it has parted with 

4 



SCOTTISH GARDENS IN GENERAL 

most of its superfluous heat ; and, east of 30° 
west longitude, ceases to be distinguishable from the 
general eastward drift of water promoted by the 
prevailing air current from w.s.w. to e.n.e. 
Dr. James Croll has calculated that the Gulf 
Stream is responsible for one-fifth of the total heat 
of the North Atlantic, and that if the warm current 
were shut ofi" or diverted, the surface temperature 
of that ocean would fall to an average of three 
degrees below zero F. — that, in short, it would 
become a frozen sea. Dr. Haughton, on the other 
hand, has given tables showing that, while the Gulf 
Stream certainly raises the temperature of our seas 
very considerably in winter, it actually lowers it in 
summer. Perhaps all that can be affirmed with 
certainty is that the Gulf Stream has a genial 
influence, not only upon the climate of the United 
Kingdom, but actually -ndthin the Arctic circle at 
Hammerfest. 

Admitting gratefully as we may our indebtedness 
to this beneficent current, it is not easy to attribute 
to its sole agency the superior mildness of our western 
seaboard as compared with the inland and eastern 
districts. An explanation of that constant pheno- 
menon must be sought not in the waters beneath 
the firmament, but in the firmament itself — in the 
general circulation of the atmosphere. 

The air we breathe forms a fluid envelope over 
the entire globe, which, becoming intensely heated 
under the ecliptic, expands and rises in a huge 

5 



SCOTTISH GAEDENS 

dome or ridge corresponding with the apparent path 
of the sun round the earth. From the top of this 
ridge the heated air flows away towards the poles, 
descending to the earth's surface again at about 
30° N. and S. latitude. The circumference of the 
earth at these latitudes being very much less than 
at the equator, the surface velocity in diurnal rota- 
tion is necessarily diminished in proportion. But 
the descending air current retains, not only much 
of the heat, but also much of the high eastward 
velocity imparted to it in equatorial regions, the 
result being a general movement of the atmosphere 
in the northern temperate zone from s.w. to n.e. 
Land areas, being far more extensive and numerous 
in the northern hemisphere than they are in the 
southern, interfere powerfully with this general drift 
of atmosphere by causing local diflferences of tempera- 
ture ; but it has a clear oceanic course of about 4000 
miles in passing from the coast of Florida to the 
Land's End. By virtue of its heat, this warm air 
current is able to absorb the moisture which is con- 
tinually being given off by evaporation from the 
ocean surface, and to carry it eastward in the 
invisible form of vapour. But when the air current 
is chilled, whether in summer by meeting high land 
which lifts it to a colder stratum, or in winter by 
striking land which at that season is colder than 
the sea, it loses the power of carrying the vapour, 
which is suddenly condensed into the visible form 
of rain or snow, mist or fog. Such is the chief 

6 



SCOTTISH GARDENS IN GENERAL 

permanent cause of the greater rainfall on our 
western coasts, as compared with our eastern. 
Hence, also, their superior mildness in winter ; for 
the latent heat, which was engaged in carrying 
vapour, is released as soon as that vapour is con- 
densed and falls out of the air, being instantly felt 
in the form of warmth. The air current passing 
inland deprived of such moisture as it has lost by 
condensation, is deprived also of the heat which 
enabled it to bring that moisture to the coast ; whence 
the far greater severity of winter at Leicester 
and Perth compared with western localities corre- 
sponding to these places in latitude, such as Limerick 
and Oban. Dr. Haughton has calculated that, on 
the west coast of Ireland as much heat is derived 
from rainfall as from the direct action of the sun. 

In another important respect vegetation is 
aflfected and its character modified by the amount 
of vapour in the air. Moisture, in the invisible 
form of vapour, interferes almost as much with the 
passage of heat from the sun to the earth, and 
with the radiation of heat from the earth into space, 
as it does when partially condensed into the form 
of mist or cloud. In proportion, therefore, as the 
air current discharges itself of vapour by precipita- 
tion in passing over the high grounds of our western 
seaboard, is there less interference with the access 
of sunrays to the surface of midland and eastern 
districts. This secures for these districts brighter, 
hotter summers than in the west ; subject always to 

7 



SCOTTISH GARDENS 

local conditions, such as exposure to cold eastern 
currents. But the diminution of air-borne vapour 
promotes radiation, causing the earth to part more 
quickly with its heat, and reducing the mean winter 
temperature of midland and eastern districts below 
that of western. 

Such is, very broadly and briefly, the outline 
of the normal course of British meteorology, as 
explained by Haughton, CroU, Strachey, Scott and 
other observers. To the horticulturist it resolves 
itself into this, that the climate in the west is 
cooler in summer and warmer in winter than that 
of inland and eastern districts, and he must conform 
to these conditions in his choice of decorative 
material. 

It is impossible to guess how much money and 
labour is wasted each year in attempting to grow 
in a humid climate and on a cool soil plants which 
delight in a roasting sun on a dry formation. On 
the other hand, what opportunities do we not see 
thrown away by neglecting the capabilities of soil 
and climate, thereby reducing gardens and pleasure 
grounds to a monotonous uniformity of furniture. 

Take as an example, the Rhododendron family. 
The common R. ponticum grows anywhere except on 
chalk or limestone ; consequently it is grown every- 
where, choking our woodlands and smothering the 
beautiful native undergrowth, until the eye wearies of 
what is in truth a very handsome shrub. Even people 
who live on chalk and limestone, instead of taking 



SCOTTISH GARDENS IN GENERAL 

advantage of their position to cultivate plants that 
revel in a cretaceous soil, are at infinite pains to 
prepare beds for rhododendrons, and so make their 
gardens as like those of other people as possible. 
And others, possessed of the cool soil and humid 
atmosphere in which rhododendrons rejoice seldom 
plant any but the common ponticum and its hybrids. 
All along the west coast, from the Land's End to 
Cape Wrath, a continual succession of bloom from 
midwinter to the very end of July can be secured 
by planting the exquisite Himalayan and Caucasian 
species, many of which it is vain to attempt to bring 
through the winter in the famous nurseries at 
Woking and Bagshot. Miss Wilson has caught 
some of these in flower in an Argyllshire garden 
(Stonefield, Plate IX.) and, lest the beautiful scene she 
has depicted should stimulate a desire in any of 
my west-coast readers to attempt similar eflects, a 
list of the choicer species is given in Appendix A. 

The two things requisite for success are suflicient 
drainage to prevent the soil getting waterlogged 
and shelter from violent winds, especially wind ofi' 
the sea. Many species, such as R. arboi'ewm, 
campanulatum, cimmmomeum and cinnabarinum will 
live and flower even in a windy exposure, but 
their foliage gets seared and stunted, and the 
foilage of these choice shrubs is as remarkable for 
beauty as their flowers. 

There is a host of other exotics reputed tender 
in the neighbourhood of London and in the English 



SCOTTISH GARDENS 

midlands, which grow and flower luxuriantly in the 
Scottish westland. A list of these will be found 
in Appendix B. How greatly the interest and 
beauty of pleasure-grounds might be enhanced if a 
selection from these were substituted for the too 
frequent laurel (which is not a laurel, but a plum), 
the ubiquitous ponticum rhododendron, the urban 
aucuba and the suburban mahonia ! One would 
think, after surveying the sameness which pervades 
so many shrubberies and flower-beds that there 
was a poverty of material to choose from, instead 
of the enormous variety, almost bewildering in 
extent, which the enterprise of nurserymen and the 
diligence of their collectors have put within easy 
reach of people of quite moderate means. 

It must be admitted that there has been a 
marked improvement in this respect during the last 
quarter of a century. Many people devote them- 
selves nowadays to the cultivation of hardy shrubs 
and herbs with an enthusiasm and degree of know- 
ledge seldom met with in early and mid- Victorian 
years. They have grown so keen as to fall, some- 
times, into the opposite extreme, and to take more 
pains to rear plants with which it is difiicult to 
succeed than they do with those best suited to 
their soil and climate. 

I visited lately the famous garden of a friend in 
Sussex. I found him sitting under a tree, sur- 
rounded by borders the wealth and variety of which 
I was eager to explore. Before I could do so, he 

10 



SCOTTISH GARDENS IN GENERAL 

marched me off saying, "Come this way ; I have 
something to show you." He led me to a north- 
west corner between two ivy-covered walls and 
displayed with much pride a few flowering sprays 
of Tropceolum speciosum — that lovely flame-flower, 
which, in the humid north, is a rampant, but ever- 
welcome weed. It certainly was a triumph of 
horticulture to succeed even moderately in one of 
the hottest counties in England with this plant 
which revels in the cool soil and moist atmosphere 
of the north ; but the merit of this garden lay 
not in such feats of coddling, but in the abund- 
ance and richness of sun-loving flowers. 

Do not let it be imagined that I am superior 
to these little gardening foibles. J'ai passe par la, 
moi qui vous parle — nay, I am still treading the path 
of futile error. Neither age nor experience, nor 
both combined, can purge a fool of his folly ; and 
so it comes to pass that I cannot bring myself to 
root up two large specimens oi Xanthoceras sorhifolia, 
a bush which in the southern counties loads itself 
in May with garlands of white flowers with a 
blotch of burgundy at the base of each petal. In 
Scotland I have never seen it produce more than 
a meagre sprinkling of half shrivelled blossoms. So 
with Hibiscus syriacus, that glory of English Augusts, 
and the bulbous Sternhergia, which stars with gold 
the vineyards of France, what time the cream-tinted 
oxen slowly draw the oozing grapes to the wine- 
press. All of these, and many others which might 

11 



SCOTTISH GARDENS 

be named, live in Scotland, and make abundant 
jDromise in the way of foliage ; but the promise is 
never, or hardly ever, fulfilled. Either the flowers lag 
too late for want of sun-forcing, which is the way 
with Hibiscus, or the plants are never ripened enough 
to form flower-buds at all, which is the matter 
with Sternhergia. On the other hand, there are 
many plants which relish the cool, moist north, and 
refuse to respond to the sun of southerly shires. 

The vaporous western and northern atmosphere, 
acting in conjunction with a soil for the most 
part cool, has one eflect upon plant growth note- 
worthy for Scottish gardeners, greatly modifying the 
cultural requirements of certain plants. General 
instructions contained in horticultural works and 
nursery catalogues are mostly calculated for the 
meridian of London, and directions for providing 
shade apply chiefly to the sunnier regions of our realm 
and hot soils. But a plant that appreciates a 
northern exposure or overhanging foliage in Sussex 
may require all the direct sunshine it can receive 
in Argyllshire or Perthshire to ripen its growth 
sufiiciently for the supreme efibrt of flowering. For 
instance, when I first obtained the beautiful Chilian 
shrub then called Crinodendron Hookeri, but now known 
as Tricuspidaria lanceolata, I was advised by that 
veteran horticulturist, Canon Ellacombe, to give it 
a north exposure. Accordingly I planted one against 
a wall facing north-east, and it has grown at the 
rate of two feet a year — a picture of vigour — but 

12 



SCOTTISH GARDENS IN GENERAL 

with very sparse return in floM'ers. Another plant 
of the same species, set in an open border facing 
south-west, has not grown nearly so fast, but is of 
sturdier habit, and at the present moment (22nd 
August) is closely set with tiny flower-buds on 
long white peduncles, which will swell next April 
into the crimson globular bells which are the glory 
of this choice evergreen.^ Canon Ellacombe's advice 
was perfectl}'" sound and applicable to the neigh- 
bourhood of Bath, but had to be aj^plied with a 
caveat in grey Galloway. 

Again, Daphne Blaageaiia seeks all the shade it 
can get in its native haunts in south-eastern Europe, 
and may demand the same when gi-own on diy, 
chalky soils in southern England ; but I have never 
seen it so fine as under Mr. Moore's care in the Glas- 
nevin Botanic Gardens, where it covers a large round 
bed, in full sunshine, with its delectable ivory-white 
blossoms. 

Similar examples might be multiplied ; the lesson 
of them all being the same, namely, that the vaporous 
atmosphere of Scotland, especially in the west, tempers 
the sun-rays enough to enable most shade-loving 
plants not only to endure them, but to benefit by 
them. 

A wise discrimination in deciding what to grow 
makes all the difference between struggling and 
co-operating with nature. For what, after all, 

' This never came to pass. The destructive frost of Eastertide, 1908, destroyed 
the flower-buds of this and many another choice shrub. 

13 



SCOTTISH GARDENS 

does cultivation amount to ? I speak not of the 
florist's craft, which takes a wild flower or shrub 
and, with infinite cunning, transforms it into some- 
thing different, so that a wild mother carnation 
could not recognise her own offspring in the mon- 
strous Malmaison race (unless it were by scent, as a 
ewe does her lamb), nor the modest little wild 
heartsease, which covers with a blue mist the roofs 
of old log-houses in Norway, claim kinship with the 
show and fancy pansies which have developed such 
amazing colours and are judged, like poultry, by 
their points. For the gardener proper all this work 
is done by others ; his function is to propagate and 
grow ; his care is so to dispose plants that they shall 
be spared the intense struggle for life which every 
wild tree, shrub or herb has to undergo. It is 
surprising what fine qualities many of our British 
wild flowers develop under careful handling. We 
cause the ends of the earth to be ransacked for the 
furnishing of our borders, while all around us, in 
meadow and copse, on seacoast and moorland, by 
riverside and hedgerow, there is material which will 
respond to thoughtful treatment with a display 
rivalling that of costly exotics. Among the many 
excellent, but unfulfilled, intentions of a desultory 
life has been the purpose to create an all-British 
garden, wherein nothing should be planted but native 
vegetation. Any amateur who may feel disposed 
for the experiment will find some suggestion in 
Appendix C. Meanwhile, let me give a single illus- 

14 



SCOTTISH GARDENS IN GENERAL 

tration of possibilities. In the peat bogs of lowland 
Scotland, northern England and Ireland may be 
found a slender, little, heathlike plant, four or five 
inches high, sparsely clad with narrow, evergreen 
leaves, glaucous on the back, bearing in late 
summer a few pretty, pale pink, drooping flowers on 
the model of an arbutus or a bearberry. Strange 
to say, this plant is not found in the Highlands of 
Scotland, though it is abundant in Norway. It is 
the marsh andromeda (A. polifolia), according to 
modern classification the solitary species in the genus. 
It seems to prefer the sloppiest parts of the bog, 
where even heather declines to grow ; but in fact 
it grows there only because there is no room for it 
elsewhere. Its hardy constitution enables it to main- 
tain a precarious existence in a soaked mixture of 
sour peat and sphagnum which would be the death 
of any other hardwooded plant. Nevertheless, it is 
as fond of good things as its neighbours. Remove 
some plants from their native slime (they are so 
feeble that it must be carefully done) and set them 
in a sunny border in a mixture of peat, sand and 
loam, keep them from being overshadowed by gi'osser 
plants, lay some stones on the surface round them 
to keep some moisture about their roots, and in a 
couple of years they will grow into sturdy little 
bushes, nearly a foot high, with abundant leafage 
and a fine display of flowers. You have aided them 
in the struggle for life, and they reward you by 
developing into plants of really extraordinary beauty. 

15 



SCOTTISH GARDENS 

In visiting Scottish gardens (and the same 
remark applies to English ones also) I have been 
struck by the almost universal mismanagement, 
sometimes the total neglect, of flowering shrubs. 
The majority of gardeners seem to act on the 
principle that these plants must take care of them- 
selves. A shrubbery is laid out, planted with a 
variety of species, and left severely alone. What 
is the consequence? The strong growers throttle 
the more slender ones, which either disappear, or 
lead a precarious existence, spindling away among 
their rampant neighbours with little opportunity of 
ripening wood to carry flowers. 

Again, many of the rarer shrubs, especially 
rhododendrons, are grafted upon common vigorous 
stocks. Constant vigilance is required, but is very 
seldom bestowed, to prevent suckers springing from 
the stock and supplanting the more delicate scion. 
It is a treat to spend a morning in a shrubbery 
like that at Poltalloch, in Argyllshire, where the 
gardener, Mr. Melville, tends the shrubs as carefully 
as the ordinary man does his roses and fruit trees, 
giving each plant plenty of room to develop and 
securing that by judicious pruning and timely 
transplanting. The result is, to mention one species 
only, that he can show you bushes of the rare 
Eucryphia pinnatifolia twelve or fourteen feet high, 
covered with charming white blossoms on their 
entire height and circumference. Many people, no 
doubt, have planted Eucryphia, allowed it to 

16 



SCOTTISH GARDENS IN GENERAL 

disappear and concluded that it was unable to 
endure a northern climate ; but the fact is that, 
like so many other Chilian plants, both Eucryphia 
pinnatifolia and the rarer cordifolia take most kindly 
to cultivation in Scotland and Ireland, though they 
cannot be kept at Kew. 

In another respect carelessness is even more 
apparent in the generality of shrubberies. Few 
gardeners seem to be aware that, in the cultivation 
of flowering shrubs, there is any need for the 
pruning knife or secateur, except to keep a gangway 
on garden paths. But many flowering shrubs need 
pruning as regularly as roses if they are to do 
themselves justice. Especially is this the case with 
those that bloom on the season's growth. These 
should be carefully gone over immediately after they 
have flowered, cut back to an eye behind the old 
flowering shoots and relieved of weakly and crowded 
growths. Typical examples of shrubs requiring this 
treatment are BvddUia, Forsythia, the choicer kinds 
of Philadelphus, Escallonia phillipiana, the hybrid 
Deutzias, and all the Olearias. Shrubs which flower 
on two-year-old growth require all weakly or failing 
growth removed and vigorous growth pinched or 
shortened. 

Of course there are many species of flowering trees 
and shrubs which, planted in quantity and growing 
to a large size, cannot be gone over regularly ; but 
anything choice or rare will amply repay a little 
intelligent handling. The finer sorts of rhododen- 
B 17 



SCOTTISH GARDENS 

drons, especially, suffer frequently from being planted 
six feet or so apart when small and allowed to 
grow up in a jungle. This class of evergreen does 
not benefit by pruning, but none bears transplanting 
so well or so easily. As the foliage of many 
kinds of rhododendron is exceedingly beautiful, 
each plant should have ample room from first to 
last. Various kinds of lilies, most of which thrive 
best in soil full of living roots, may be employed 
to fill the spaces which it is desirable to keep 
between rhododendrons when planted in a bed. 

In mild districts the hardy palm, Cha7ncerops 
excelsa, Cordyline, and the finer bamboos may be 
used with splendid efiect. Tree ferns, also grow 
luxuriantly with side shelter from high winds and 
overhead shelter from frost. Both of these requisites 
are easily provided because these cryptogams thrive 
best in shade and therefore should be planted in a 
moist wood. Not many years ago, tree ferns were 
easily obtained in London sale-rooms ; but they are 
hard to come by now, in consequence of the wise 
action of the New Zealand government in prohibiting 
the exportation of Dicksonia. Nurserymen who have 
old plants ask a guinea a foot for them, but some 
tradesmen have seedlings to dispose of. These can 
be had at a reasonable rate ; should be grown 
forward in a cold frame or cool greenhouse, hardened 
off at a foot high, when they may be planted out 
in permanent positions. 

As no flower garden depends only on flowers 
18 



SCOTTISH GARDENS IN GENERAL 

for its charm, so is it of the utmost moment that 
suitable kinds of trees should be chosen to decorate 
it. Assuming that the environment of the garden 
proper is more or less woodland in character,^ the 
gardener's concern will be to choose from the vast 
variety offered by modern nurserymen. In spacious 
grounds, room will not be grudged to an ancient 
oak or two, or a group of beeches or limes. But 
in a garden of modest dimensions the presence of 
these and other trees with far-reaching, hungry 
roots will impoverish the borders and cause the 
loss of many a precious thing. Luckily we have 
among the many coniferous trees introduced to this 
country during last century some which content 
themselves with a very moderate root-run. The 
columnar habit of such evergreens as the Lawson 
cjrpress, the incense cypress {Lihocedrus decurrens) 
and the pencil cedar {Juniperios virgmianiis) are of 
priceless effect among flowerbeds, providing those 
vertical lines which, as given by the Italian cypress, 
impart such a charming character to Mediterranean 
scenery. But it is sad to see how this effect has 
been marred or missed owing to the pernicious 
practice of growing such conifers as these from 
cuttings. Young plants, trim and verdant, come 

' Although this is very desirable for providing shelter it is not indispensable for 
fine effect. In the very heart of the treeless waste surrounding Kinbrace railway 
station in Sutherland, stands the shooting lodge of Badanloch. Never have I seen 
greater profusion of brilliant perennials than suiprised me when I visited this place 
during the wet and cheerless summer of 1907. The garden was on a slope, open to all 
the winds of heaven, the soil being chiefly grit and peat. 

19 



SCOTTISH GARDENS 

from the nursery and perhaps do not betray their 
true character for several years. Gradually they 
assume the appearance of branches stuck in the 
ground, which indeed they are, or they send up a 
crowd of sticks instead of one straight leader. 
The only way to avoid disappointment in this 
matter is either to grow one's own seedlings, 
whereby five or six years delay is incurred, or to 
employ a trustworthy tradesman and insist on 
being supplied with plants grown from seed. 

Another delightful tree, which used to be classed 
as a conifer, but has now been ascertained to be 
nearly related to the cycads and palms, is the 
gingko or maidenhair tree. It is deciduous : it is 
often misshapen, because grown from a cutting : 
but for grace and distinction a well-grown specimen 
is hard to beat, and it is perfectly hardy in many 
parts of Scotland. 

Conifers, however valuable for winter greenery, 
afibrd unsatisfactory shade ; and a shady place or 
places there must be in every garden however 
small. This can only be had in perfection from 
broad-leaved trees, and there is abundant variety 
to choose from. In a woodland country it is perhaps 
desirable to mark the select character of garden 
ground by giving a preference to exotic growths. 
Where beech and oak, elm and sycamore, form 
the background of garden scenery, it is an agree- 
able change to see fine specimens of sweet and 
horse-chestnut, robinia, tulip-tree, gleditsia, and the 

20 



SCOTTISH GARDENS IN GENERAL 

finer maples. The red flowering horse-chestnut, 
^sctihis carnea, a hybrid between the common 
horse-chestnut and the American JSsculus pavia, is 
far too seldom seen in Scottish pleasure grounds, 
though commonly planted in the neighbourhood of 
London. It is, however, perfectly at home in the 
north, and although it is generally considered to 
be of less lofty growth than the common sort, my 
experience with it leads me to believe that there 
is not much difierence between the two kinds in 
that respect. If there is no more splendid spectacle 
in British woodland scenery than a well-grown 
horse-chestnut in full bloom, the red-flowered variety 
is no whit inferior, and the beauty of each is 
mutually enhanced by contrast. 

One word about another tree too seldom seen, 
matchless as it is in certain qualities of foliage 
and outline — to wit — the evergreen oak. Its efiect 
in a garden is well shown in Miss Wilson's view 
at Castle Kennedy (Plate X.). Changeless in its 
kindly neutral tint, save when the wind tosses the 
boughs to make them show the silvery undersides 
of the leaves, or for a brief period in early summer 
when the flowers and young growth spread a tawny 
tint over the grey, the holm oak never fails to 
attract admiration when it is well-grown. But it is 
not always grown to its best. Planted singly or at 
wide intervals, it is apt to assume the form of a 
huge bush ; but submit it to the early discipline of 
close planting — a dozen or so in a group six feet 

21 



SCOTTISH GARDENS 

apart — and you may get a magnificent tree like the 
one at Rosanna, co. Wicklow, which is 90 feet high, 
loftier than any of the species in its native Southern 
Europe, so freely does it respond to the genial 
influences of the west. 

The task of making a selection of garden scenes 
in Scotland has been one of much perplexity. In 
order to make it representative of all styles and 
scales, many famous and beautiful places have been 
passed by. Moreover, the summer of 1907 was the 
wettest and coldest we have had for thirty years ; 
which frustrated many attempts to portray gardens 
in the remoter parts of the country. Had it been 
Miss Wilson's lot to have executed her task during 
the summer of 1908, not only would the work have 
been more agreeable but it would have had more 
satisfactory results. The purpose of artist and author 
has been to present specimens of gardens of every 
degree — modest as well as majestic, formal as well 
as free — whereby the possessor of the humblest plot 
of ground may be stimulated to beautify it with as 
fair hope of proportionate success as the lord of 
thousands of acres. 



22 



ARDGOWAN 



RENFREWSHIRE 




LTHOUGH botanists cannot be got to 
recognise the snowdrop as a true native 
of Britain, no foreigner establishes itself 
more cordially wherever in our land it 
finds the combination of a moist, cool 
atmosphere with a free soil. Those persons who 
have never happened to visit the west coast of 
Scotland during January and Febniary can have 
little idea of the profuse display made by this little 
bulb wherever it is given a chance, or of the rapidity 
with which it takes possession of the floor of a 
hollow wood. Probably the conditions are equally 
favourable and produce a similar result in Ireland 
and along the Welsh coast, but of this I cannot 
speak with assurance, never having visited those 
districts during the snowdrop season. Anyhow, you 
must not look for snowdrops in sun-baked latitudes. 
Some years ago, narcissus and other flowers arrived in 
the market from Scilly unusually early. Now the snow- 
drop is perhaps the only spring-flowering bulb which 
cannot be coaxed or forced into blossom a day earlier 

23 



SCOTTISH GARDENS 

than its natural date. If the ground happens to 
be iron-bound with frost in January, then the snow- 
drops potted and kept under glass will get a start 
of their brethren in the open air ; but not before 
the time when the latter would have flowered had 
it been physically possible for them to get through 
the hard surface-soil. Probably this is the only, it 
is certainly the chief, impediment to the snowdrop's 
punctuality, causing a considerable variation in the 
date of flowering. On the west coast of Scotland 
I have gathered the first snowdrop on 19th December 
in one winter ; in other seasons not until 8th or 10th 
January. 

In the year aforesaid, I asked Mr. Dorrien Smith, 
than whom nobody has a more thorough understand- 
ing of bulbs and their behaviour, whether he had 
noticed in Scilly any precocity in the snowdrop bloom 
corresponding to that of the narcissus. 

" Snowdrops ! " said he, " we can't grow them in 
SciUy. We are too hot for them." 

Neither do they prosper on most parts of the 
east coast ; they will grow, indeed, and flower, but 
they do not midtiply or luxuriate. No : if you want 
to enjoy snowdrops at their finest, you must go, not 
where there is most snow, as in the midland and 
eastern regions, nor where there is least snow, in 
Scilly and southern England, but to the west where 
clouds in winter droop low and weep long, where 
the tooth of frost seldom strikes so deep as to arrest 
all growth, 

24 




AKIHIOW AN. 



AKDGOWAN 

Snowdrops possess one virtue which is appreciated 
by all who take note of flowering herbs ; the accursed 
rabbit, which is responsible for incalculable destruc- 
tion and for the extirpation of much of our native 
flora, cannot digest them. What the repellent 
property is nobody seems to know. The Amaryllis 
family, whereof the snowdrop is a member, diflfers 
only from the Iris family in having six stamens 
instead of three ; yet rabbits will devour every shred 
of crocus, sparaxis and sisyrinchium — iridaceous 
bulbs — while they leave snowdrops and dafibdils, 
true amaryllids, severely alone. In daffodils the 
protective agent is known to consist, not of any 
chemical poison, but of numerous minute crystals of 
lime, called rajjhides, contained in the sap, which prove 
so powerful an irritant as to upset even the digestion 
of a rabbit. Whatever be the corresponding pro- 
vision in the snowdrop's slender growth it is one for 
which all lovers of the country must feel grateful, 
for it has been the means of preserving the chief 
ornament of our woodlands when the days are at 
their darkest. 

Nowhere may you realise this more fully than 
at Ardgowan, the Renfrewshire home of Sir Hugh 
and Lady Alice Shaw Stewart. Nowhere else shall 
you find snowdrops more abundant or more 
charmingly disposed — millions of them — among 
sloping woods on the shore of the Firth of Clyde. 

The garden proper at Ardgowan is notable in 
many respects, and bids fair to become still more 

25 



SCOTTISH GARDENS 

so under the guidance of its mistress, who has 
applied herself with ardour and intelligence to 
develop the resources of a kindly soil and genial 
climate. The walled garden is 200 yards from end 
to end, with gi'eat ranges of glass, where Mr. Lunt, 
who has been in active superintendence for more than 
half a century, produces fruit by the hundred-weight, 
unsurpassed in quality. Round the outside of this 
enclosure lies an outer garden, where many choice 
shrubs have been allowed to maintain for many 
years a fierce straggle for existence. These are now 
in process of being relieved and rearranged, during 
which many unsuspected treasures have been brought 
to light, such as a bush of Rhododendron glaucum 
(distinguished among others of the genus by its 
deliciously scented foliage) of the unusual height of 
eight feet. 

The mansion house stands on a plateau sixty 
feet above the main garden, commanding enchanting- 
views across the blue firth of the Argyllshire hills 
to the west, and many-crested Arran to the south. 
The lawn garden stretches before the south front of 
the house, where two enormous arbutus, of well-nigh 
forest stature, attest the mildness of the climate. 
There is also a fair specimen of the deciduous or 
swamp cypress, a tree seldom seen in Scotland. 

It would take a long summer day to exhaust 
the beauty and interest of these grounds ; but the 
same may be said of many another earthly paradise 
which have grown up round old country houses. 

26 



ARDGOWAN 

Miss Wilson might have hesitated long before 
deciding on a single subject where there is so much 
to choose from ; she has chosen rightly, I think, to 
depict a scene and a season in which Ardgowan 
has no rival known to me ; for nowhere else have 
I been able to walk a mile on end through acres 
of snowdrops in blossom. 

Round three sides of the plateau referred to 
runs a steep slope, in places precipitous, of red 
conglomerate. At the apex of this green promontory, 
where the cliff is sheer, is poised the ancient keep 
of Inverkip. At the neck of the promontory stands 
the Georgian mansion of Ardgowan, built in 1798, 
a period when Scottish lairds were beginning to 
find the fortalices of their ancestors inconveniently 
cramped for modern households. Between the cliff 
and the sea is a wide belt of that raised beach 
which forms such a marked feature in coast scenery 
of the west, known to geologists as the 25 foot 
beach, formed when the general land level was 
that distance below the present one. Woods of pine 
and broad leaved trees clothe the flat land, the 
slopes and the cliff itself, wherever foothold can be 
found, and all these woods are carpeted with snow- 
drops, primroses, and blue hyacinths. Empty enough 
they seem in winter time. Cover-shooters, pursuing 
their pastime in the dark days of November, little 
think what wealth of flowers is stored in millions 
of modest little bulbs beneath their feet ; but he 
must indeed be insensible to natural beauty who, 

27 



SCOTTISH GARDENS 

returning in February, is not moved to enthusiasm 
by the display. 

Flowers have appealed to human admiration and 
affection in all ages ; the exhortation to " consider 
the lilies" was not addressed to unsympathetic 
understandings ; but in other respects our aesthetic 
standard varies strangely from generation to 
generation. A curious illustration of this is given 
in an anecdote of Lancelot Brown, the architect 
and landscape gardener, commonly known as 
" Capability Brown." ^ It is said that Sir John 
Shaw Stewart, when he was planning his new 
house, employed Brown to lay out the park and 
plantations. A conspicuous and charming feature 
in the view to the north from the front door of 
the house is a steep, wooded hill called Idzholm, 
at the foot of which flows the little river Kip, 
much frequented by sea-trout. The silvan curtain 
over Idzholm is broken near the centre by a great 
grey crag, contrasting delightfully with the soft 
park scenery and surrounding cultivation. But that 
is not how Capability Brown viewed it. Unable 
to plant over the bare rock, he proposed to paint 
it green, so that, when viewed from a distance, 
it might present the appearance of a woodland 
glade ! Inconceivable, you will say, but in justice 
to Mr. Brown let it not be forgotten how greatly 

'"Capability Brown" died in 1783 ; the present mansion of Ai-dgowan was not 
begun till 1798, so the story perhaps had its origin in another designer. Brown, 
however, may have laid out the park before the new house was begun. 

28 



AEDGOWAN 

the country has altered since his day. That was an 
age when an English traveller returning to London 
from a tour in Scotland, described his impressions 
thus succinctly : 

" Bleak mountains and desolate rocks 

Were the wretched result of our pains ; 

The swains greater brutes than their flocks, 

The nymphs as polite as their swains." 

At the close of the eighteenth century, the greater 
part of Renfrewshire was brown moorland. Grey rocks 
were too common to be thought picturesque ; the 
landscape gardener's business was to make his em- 
ployer's park appear like a smooth oasis in the 
surrounding wilderness. In these our days, when 
every farmer's ambition is to make two blades of 
grass, or two turnips, grow where one grew before, 
we have changed our feeling in this matter. We 
pile up mimic crags and miniature alps in feeble 
imitation of the boulders and heather which our 
ancestors were at so much pains to get rid off, and 
pronounce that part of our pleasure grounds most 
delectable which most nearly resembles the primaeval 
wild. Rockeries, water-gardens, wild-gardens, bog- 
gardens — all are symptoms of reaction from excessive 
trimness and formality. 

Upon the new house was bestowed the name 
of Ardgowan, as the lands were called which Robert 
III. bestowed in 1403 upon his natural son Sir 
John Stewart, having previously given him the 
estates of Auchingoun and Blackball in 1390 and 

29 



SCOTTISH GARDENS 

1395 respectively. All these lands have passed in 
male succession through six centuries to the present 
owner, but for five hundred years the knights of 
Ardgowan were content to live in the old tower of 
Inverkip, which is shown in Miss Wilson's drawing. 
It has been the scene of many a fierce conflict, 
being first mentioned in histor}^ in 1307 as the 
refuge of Sir Philip de Mowbray, one of Edward I.'s 
best captains, who, in May 1307, fell into an 
ambush, laid near Kilmarnock, by Good Sir James 
of Douglas. Barbour tells the story with much 
relish — how one of Douglas's men caught hold of 
Mowbray's scabbard, and must have captured him 
had not the belt broken, and so the English knight 
rode free. 

Tliarfor furth the wais tuk he then 

To Kihiiarnok and Kilwynnyn, 

And till Ardrossan eftir syu [afterwards]. 

Syn [then] throu the Largis him alane 

Till Ennirkyp the way has tane.^ 

The castle Avas "stufiit all with Inglismen" — that is, 
it held an English garrison, who received the fugitive 
" in gret dante." 

But if one yields to the temptation to dive into 
the annals of an old Scottish house, he will be led 
far astray from the matter of this volume, which is, 
or ought to be, horticulture, 

1 Barbour's Bnis, Ix. 94-98. 



30 



WHITEHOUSE 



MIDLOTHIAN 




HE modest demesne of Whitehouse abuts 
upon the high road which, for the best 
part of a mile, flanks the old royal chace 
of Cramond Regis, now a country 
gentleman's spacious park, whereof the 
name has been altered by an unpoetical generation 
into Barnton. 

Whitehouse belonged of old to the Knights 
Templars. On the suppression of the Order in the 
fourteenth century, the lands were bestowed upon 
William Earl of Douglas, who, in turn, granted 
them to James Sandilands, husband of his sister 
Alianora, a lady who must be credited with extra- 
ordinary attraction, physical or other, seeing that 
she married five husbands in succession. From 
James Sandilands is descended the present Lord 
Torphichen, twelfth baron in the creation of 1564, 
who retains the superiority of Whitehouse, the 
reddendo, or annual feu-duty, being a white rose. 
After passing through several hands, the property 
was purchased by Mr. Mackay, the present owner, 

31 



SCOTTISH GARDENS 

who has renovated and enlarged the seventeenth 
century mansion with tasteful discretion. 

The chief features of the garden of Whitehouse 
are at their best, like daffodils, " before the swallow 
dares." Nowhere else in Scotland, and only in one 
place in England (Stocken Hall, Lincolnshire) have 
I seen such wealth of winter aconite. A belt of 
trees round the garden is thickly carpeted with them; 
they run through the ivy and grass, which sparkle 
with myriads of their little golden cups and dainty 
green frills ; only the surrounding stone walls and 
hard gravel paths suffice to keep them within 
limits. 

It was a day of sullen gusts and bitter snow 
showers when I visited Whitehouse ; the lawn of 
crocuses, which Miss Wilson has depicted so 
charmingly, was but a mass of tightly closed purple 
cones, for the crocus is too careful of its golden 
anthers and stigma to open except in full sunshine. 
To the crocus, as to most herbs which hold their 
blooms erect, is given the power of shutting out foul 
weather ; but the winter aconite heeds neither cold 
nor storm. Appearing above ground when the days 
are not long past their shortest, it seems determined 
to enjoy every ray of light that it can gather, 
before it obeys the law of its being, and goes to 
its long sleep underground throughout the summer 
and autumn months. Certainly that innumerable 
company of golden blossoms remains the one bright 
memory of that unkindly February day. 

32 



WHITEHOUSE 

It is a flower whereof enough use is not made 
by country lovers. Perhaps we despise it for being 
so cheap ; you can get a thousand of its gnarled 
tubers for a few shillings. But these require a little 
care in starting. Many people have been disappointed 
at the result of planting out tubers in a dry state 
as they come from a tradesman. They simply rot 
if they are set out in close turf The proper way 
to naturalise them is to grow them for a season in 
rows in rather a sandy border ; in the following spring, 
when the bloom is fading, take them up carefully 
with as much soil as will stick to them, and plant 
them where you would have them grow permanently. 
No place is more favourable than a hollow wood of 
deciduous trees, where the turf is not too dense. 
Here they will rapidly increase by seed and ofi^sets : 
rabbits will not touch them, and the display will be 
something to look forward to in the darkest time 
of the year. A newly introduced species, Eranthis 
cilicica, has been described as better than our old 
friend hyernalis. I cannot see wherein is its 
superiority ; the frill, instead of being bright grass 
green, has a bronze tint, undesirable at a season when 
verdure is particularly to be coveted, and as yet the 
plant is ten times the price of the other. 

Unlike the aconite, it is only in enclosed grounds 
like those of Whitehouse, where the accursed rabbit 
comes not, that the crocus can obtain and maintain 
a footing. Even so, the bulbs are often the prey of 
mice and voles ; but where these charming flowers 

D 33 



SCOTTISH GARDENS 

can hold their own, they increase rapidly and provide 
a feast of colour every spring. A feast to which, 
as I was grieved to notice a few days ago, some 
people show strange indifference. On the outskirts 
of a small country town in south-western Scotland 
stands an old grey house, surrounded by about an 
acre of garden and pleasure-ground, upon which until 
twenty years ago, the owner used to expend much 
care, planting therein many a choice shrub and herb. 
He died ; the property passed into other hands and 
the garden into neglect. But the purple crocuses 
have taken possession of the whole turf, and, as I 
passed that way one bright March morning all the 
enclosure was steeped in Tyrian dye. All of it, 
except where a goat was tethered on the lawn ; 
which beast had browsed everything bare within the 
radius of its rope ! Surely, methought, the human 
retina is alike in all ranks and conditions of men, 
except the colour-blind. Is there not one member 
of this household who cares to prevent the marring 
of this exquisite display ? 

Matters are very different at Whitehouse, where 
the crocuses have taken possession of every available 
breadth of turf and are the pride and delight of the 
family. Miss Wilson has chosen for her subject the 
spot where these pretty flowers cluster thickly round 
an old sun-dial, which bears the inscription, Mr. David 
Strachan, 1732, the name of a former owner of 
Whitehouse. It might now be inscribed with a 
legend applicable alike to the dial and the sun- 

34 



WHITEHOUSE 

loving flowers — Horas non numero nisi serenas — " I 
take no account of hours that are not sunny." 

Like the dial, these crocuses are no afi'air of 
yesterday. Who shall declare how many generations 
of men have passed away since the original bulbs 
were planted. Brought thither they must have 
been by hand, for, although the purple Crocus vermis 
is admitted to the list of British plants, it is not 
native to North Britain. Spring after spring, for an 
untold number of years, they have multiplied and 
spread, covering the turf with their imperial flush. 
It may be that King James V. in his incognito 
wanderings may have noted the pretty flowers as 
he passed that way. For he had a pretty adven- 
ture just outside this garden. 

He was a monarch of many fancies, some of 
which were highly oflensive to Angus " Bell-the- 
Cat," and other haughty lords. Among these 
fancies, it was James's humour to wander about 
the country disguised as a peasant, or, at best, a 
bonnet laird. Thus, coming one day alone to the 
bridge of Cramond, he was beset by a party of 
gypsies, who were for relieving him of the contents 
of his pockets. All men went armed in those days, 
as constantly as do Albanians and Montenegrins at 
the present ; so the King out with his sword, and 
running upon the steep and narrow bridge, managed 
to make good his defence for a while. Yet numbers 
must have prevailed in the end ; and it was well 
for King James that a real husbandman, threshing 

35 



SCOTTISH GAEDENS 

corn in a barn hard by, heard the cries for succour 
uttered by the counterfeit. This man hurried up, 
flail in hand, and plied it to such good eflect that 
the robbers decamped. Then the peasant took the 
King, in whom he beheld but one of his own class, 
into his house, brought him water and a towel to 
wash away traces of the fray, and escorted him part 
of the way back to Edinburgh. As they walked, 
the King asked for the name of his deliverer. 

"John Howieson is my name," was the reply, 
" and I am just a bondsman on the farm o' 
Braehead, whilk belongs to the King o' Scots 
himsel'." 

" Is there anything in the world you would wish 
more than another for yourself?" asked the King. 

"'Deed, if I was laird o' the bit land I labour 
as a bondsman I'd be the blythest man in braid 
Scotland. But what will your name and calling be, 
neebour?" enquired the peasant in his turn. 

" Oh," replied the King, " I'm weel kent about 
the Palace o' Holyrood as the Gudeman o' Ballen- 
geich. I hae a small appointment in the palace, 
ye ken ; and if ye hae a mind to see within, I'll 
be proud to show ye round on Sabbath nixtocum, 
and maybe ye'll get a bit guerdon for the gude 
service ye hae dune me this day." 

" Faith ! I'd like that fine," said John, and on 
the following Sunday presented himself at the palace 
gate to enquire for the Gudeman o' Ballengeich. 
The King had arranged for his admission, and 

36 



WHITEHOUSE 

received him dressed in the same rustic disguise 
as before. Having shown John Howieson round 
the palace, he asked him whether he would like 
to see the King. "Aye, that wad I," exclaimed 
John, " if nae offence be gi'en or ta'en. But hoo' 
will I ken his grace ^ amang the nobeelity ? " 

" Oh, you'll ken him fine, John," replied the 
King, " for he'll be the only man covered amang 
them a'." 

Then the King brought his guest to the great 
hall where were assembled many peers and officers 
of state, bravely attired in silk and velvet of 
many hues, passmented with gold and silver lace. 
John had on the best clothes he had, but felt 
abashed amid so great splendour, and tried in vain 
to distinguish the King. 

" Wasna I having ye telt that ye wad ken 
his grace by his going covered," said James. 

J ohn took another look round the hall ; then 
turned to his guide, saying : 

" God, man ! it maun either be you or me that's 
King o' Scots, for there's nane ither here carryin' 
his bonnet." 

Then the secret came out, followed by the 
promised guerdon, which was no less than a grant to 
John Howieson and his descendants of the farm of 
Braehead, to be held of the Crown for ever, on 

'The title of "Majesty" was first assumed in England by Henry VIII., and 
in Scotland was first applied to the monarch in Queen Mai-y's reign. Some may 
be disposed to regret the change, holding that grace is a more kingly attribute 
than majesty. 

37 



SCOTTISH GARDENS 

condition that the owner should ever be ready to 
present a basin and ewer for the King to wash his 
hands withal, either at Holyrood house or when 
crossing the brig o' Cramond. 

" Accordingly," says Sir Walter Scott in the Tales 
of a Grandfather, " in the year 1822, when George 
IV. came to Scotland, the descendant of John 
Howieson of Braehead, who still possesses the estate 
which was given to his ancestor, appeared at a 
solemn festival, and offered his Majesty water from 
a silver ewer, that he might perform the service by 
which he held his lands." 

Less seemly, but not less characteristic of the 
social system of the sixteenth century, is another 
memory connected with this place. The fourth Earl 
of Huntly, the great champion of the Roman Church 
in Scotland, had a brother, Alexander Gordon, who 
was Bishop-designate of Caithness from 1544 to 1548 ; 
elected Archbishop of Glasgow in 1550, his title was 
disputed and he resigned the see to the Pope in 
1551. He was then created Archbishop of Athens, a 
sinecure, and became Bishop of the Isles in 1553, which 
see he held till 1562 together with that of Galloway, 
whereof he acquired the temporahties in 1559. He 
also held the abbacies of Tongland, Inchaflray and 
Icolmkill — whence it may be inferred that he was a 
peculiarly affluent prelate. He also showed sagacity 
in noting the signs of the times, for he turned Pro- 
testant, being the only consecrated bishop who joined 
the Lords of the Congregation at the Reformation. 

38 



WHITEHOUSE 

" But what," exclaims the perplexed reader, " has 
all this to do with the crocuses at Whitehouse ? " 
Only this, that the crocuses set a desultory mind 
astray among the memories of Cramond, and, at 
the time when this astute pluralist was attending 
the Court of Holyrood, there lived one David Logie 
at King's Cramond. With David lived a fair daughter 
Barbara, whom Bishop Gordon made his mistress, 
and had by her four sons, three of whom he succeeded 
in getting made bishops. But in one thing he did 
not succeed, though he tried hard. He never could 
get Barbara recognised as his wife, even after his 
change of religion released him technically from his 
vow of celibacv. 



39 



MONEEITH 



"WIGTOWNSHIRE 




NE writing about daffodils should fore- 
swear poetic quotation, were it only in 
common consideration for his readers. 
Nevertheless there is one practical point 
connected with this favourite flower 
rendering excusable a reference to a passage in the 
greatest of English poets. When Shakespeare wrote 
of daffodils 

That come before the swallow dares, and take 
The winds of March with beauty, 

he had in mind, not the March of our calendar, but 
March old style, which, according to Julian reckoning, 
was in the seventeenth century, ten days in retard of 
the Gregorian dates. Although the Scottish Privy 
Council decreed the adoption of the new style from 
1600, it was not until 1751 that the British Parliament 
followed suit, passing an Act in that year which set 
matters in order by the omission of all dates between 
the 2nd and the 14th of September, 1752. Thus 
when The Winter's Tale was produced in 1611, Shake- 
speare's month of March corresponded to the period 

40 




MO.NRKlTll. 



MONREITH 

now rioted by us as extending from 11th March 
to 10th April, both inclusive. This puts the poet's 
chronology in harmony with our present experience : 
for the common daffodil is never at its prime till 
the beginning of April, even in early districts. In 
backward districts the full flush is not to be expected 
before the middle of the month. It was on the 2nd 
April that Miss Wilson made her study of daffodils 
at Monreith, and they would have made a braver 
show had she been able to wait till the following 
week. 

There is no plant, not even the rose, which has 
undergone more frequent transformation at the hands 
of the hybridiser than the daffodil ; but the natural 
species were perfect before man took to playing 
pranks with them, and I confess to thinking the new 
varieties no improvement on the old types. Those 
which have run riot through the Monreith woods are 
the common sort, Narcissus pseudo-narcissus, which 
is probably a native of England, and certainly 
revels in the humid climate of Scotland. One wants 
nothing better ; yet there are some varieties of this 
species which it would be folly to reject. The one 
known as bicolor, for instance, with a golden tube 
and broad, ivory-white segments, is quite as beautiful 
and as easily naturalised as the type, but it flowers 
a fortnight or three weeks later. Then there are the 
miniature forms, minor, nanus, and minimus, with 
tube and segments alike of rich golden yellow. These 
should be grown in borders, with such contemporary 
E 41 



SCOTTISH GARDENS 

flowers as hepaticas, chionodoxa, early squills and 
dog-tooth violets. As for the double varieties, out 
upon them ! To quote Perdita once more — 

111 not put 
The dibble in earth to set one slip of them. 

The sculptured design of this flower is so admir- 
able that it is sheer sin to let it be disfigured by 
doubling. 

Talking of daffodils, one cannot but breathe a 
thanksgiving to Nature for that she has furnished 
them with an infallible protection against the well- 
nigh omnivorous rabbit. One would suppose that 
the succulent green blades, pushing up through 
winter-slain herbage, were just the diet to whet the 
unholy appetite of these brutes. But they know 
better than to set a tooth to them. As the pro- 
tective agent in certain plants is very obscure, 
perhaps I may be allowed to quote here what I 
have said elsewhere on this matter. 

" In regard to daffodils, they ajjpear to be protected, not 
by any chemical poison, but by a purely mechanical agency 
which has been brought to light by the researches of the 
Rev. W. Wilks, editor of the Royal Horticultural Society's 
Journal. In February, 1905, he heard from a nurseryman, 
who grows daffodils for the flower trade, that men and boys 
employed to gather the flowers suffered from poisoned hands. 
He explained that after the men had been at work a little 
while, their hands became sore, gatherings forming under 
the finger-nails and wherever the skin was broken or chapped. 
This statement having been confirmed by another daffodil- 

42 



MONREITH 

grower, one of the largest in the trade, Mr. Wilks instituted 
research into the cause, and came to the conclusion that 
the irritant in the sap of the daffodil is not a true poison 
at all, but that the mischief is caused by small crystals of lime, 
called raphides, of which the sap is full. He recommends 
that people employed to gather daflfodils should oil their 
hands before setting to work, and rub tallow under their 
finger-nails. " 

Monreith has been in possession of the same 
family for 427 years. That it has been for a 
considerable part of that period a home of flowers, 
there is the evidence of a fine piece of tapestry 
to prove. This was the work of the wife of the 
third baronet (he died in 1771), who set herself to 
depict in applique the flowers growing in the castle 
garden. They were laid on a maroon ground 
to serve as a carpet — literally a parterre — for the 
castle drawing-room. A laborious task, but evi- 
dently a labour of love, so faithfully are the 
dame's favourites set out in a design of remarkable 
grandeur. A large basket of flowers forms the 
centre ; smaller groups fill the four corners, and 
round the carpet runs a continuous wreath looped 
with ribbons. 

Stowed away in a lumber room, this fine piece 
of work was unearthed thirty years ago. Moths 
had played havoc with the ground cloth, but the 
needlework was almost intact, and the colours 
fresh : skilful hands were set busy relaying the 
flowers upon cloth of an old gold colour, and the 

43 



SCOTTISH GARDENS 

piece now hangs on the wall of the ante-room in 
the modern house of Monreith. Among the flowers 
most easily recognised in the design are the 
madonna lily (which refuses to flourish with us 
now), the Isabelline lily, clove carnations, mullein, 
lupine, hyacinth, red primrose, auricula, polyanthus, 
guelder rose, anemone, moss rose, scarlet lychnis, 
pink geranium (its leaves variegated with white), 
convolvulus, sunflower, sweet-william, scabious, and 
Canterbury bells, whence one is able to form a 
good notion of the furniture of a Scottish garden 
in the eighteenth century. Strange to say, the 
common dafibdil is not among them ; the only re- 
presentative of the family being that double form 
of Narcissus incomparahilis which goes by the 
homely name of Butter-and-eggs. 

No doubt many of the flowers still adorning 
these grounds are borne on the same roots which 
furnished patterns for the gentle artist a century 
and a half ago ; for there is no fixed limit to the 
life of some of the humblest herbs. The oxlip may 
outlive the oak which overshadows it ; yonder massive 
sycamore may be but a child in years compared 
with the celandine that stars the bank at its foot, 
and who shall declare the " expectation of life " in 
the lowly stonecrop that creeps beneath our feet. 
The green mound, whereon stands the keep of the 
old castle, breaks out each spring on its south side 
with a constellation of white violets, wide-spread on 
the slope. They have long outlived the memory of 

44 



MONREITH 

her who planted them, for it is more than a 
century since the castle was inhabited. On the 
terrace at Monreith there is planted in clipped box 
the Psalmist's note of warning — Homo quasi jios 
egreditur et coyiteritur ; but those who covet length 
of days might willingly exchange terms of life with 
"the hyssop that springeth out of the wall." 



45 



GAETINCABER 



PERTHSHIRE 




HE whole plan and purpose of this 
book being to illustrate types of Scot- 
tish horticulture, the grandiose and 
elaborate have received no preference 
over the unpretending and simple. 
Any space of Scottish soil, be its dimensions cal- 
culable in roods or in acres, will serve our turn, 
so that it be an abode of flowers well tended, or 
at least, unspoilt, by its owner. 

Simple, indeed, is the garden design at Gartin- 
caber — a plain rectangle sloping pleasantly to the 
sun ; at the upper-end a sixteenth century tower, 
with nineteenth century additions naively contrived ; 
at the lower-end a clear pool, not ample enough 
to aspire to the title of " loch," yet, shadowed by 
dark firs on the far side, too comely to bear the 
common Scottish term " a stank.'" This walled 
enclosure is laid out in the old manner, subdivided 
by crossed paths, with a sun-dial at the crossing ; 
kitchen herbs and small fruits in the four quarters, 

46 




g.\rti\cabf-:k 



GARTINCABER 

with narrow selvage of flowering things, overhung 
here and there by aged apple trees. Nothing can 
have been further from the designer's intention 
than landscape efiect : use, not ornament, was his 
purpose, flowers being admitted in grudging con- 
cession to feminine frivolity ; but age has brought 
about delectable results — age, and the afl^ectionate 
tending of generations. Lofty holly hedges, such 
as John Evelyn praised, screen the litter in such 
comers where litter must be ; a few massive syca- 
mores add dignity to the scene in winter and shade 
from summer heat, without, as it seems, impoverish- 
ing the borders, for these teem with blossom to 
the very feet of the trees. But they are flowers 
of modest requirements — winter aconites and snow- 
drops, dafibdils and wind-flowers, bloodroot, violets 
white and purple, primroses and oxlips of many 
hues — all old friends, the older the better to be 
loved. On this mid-April morning in a late — a 
very late — season, what strikes one as most notable 
is the abundance of double white primroses on 
usually long footstalks, surely a strain peculiar to 
the place. 

I have dwelt on the simplicity of this garden, 
but every yard of it bears witness to afiectionate 
care, and in one respect this afiection has evinced 
itself in a manner reflecting agreeably the classical 
taste of a bygone age. Thus at the foot of the 
slope has been placed a wide stone bench, whereof 
the back bears this inscription : 

47 



SCOTTISH GARDENS 

HORTO QVEM • AMAMVS HANC • SEDEM • DONAVIMVS 

MARY HANNAH • ANNE ALICE 

FILI>E 

lOHANNIS • ET DOROTHE/t • MVRDOCH 

MDCCCCV.' 

And again : 

ILLE • TERRARVM ■ MIHI ■ PR/ETER • OMNES 
ANGVLVS • RIDET.- 

Tbe sun-dial in the middle of the garden is also 
inscribed with many legends, and bears on its base 
a dedication to Mr. and Mrs. Burn-Mnrdoch " on 
their golden wedding," from their grandchildren, 
Lorna, Dorothea, Ian, Marion, and Colin. 

It is no modern trait in the family, this pretty 
taste for inscribing stones. During the four centuries 
or thereby it has stood, the house of Gai'tincaber 
has owned no other lord than a Murdoch, and the 
dormer windows bear legends in relief ; on one, 
NoscETEiPsvM\ surmountcd by a thistle; on another 
a tag from Juvenal : 

MORS ■ SOLA • FATETVR 
QVANTVLA • SINT • HOMINVM • CORPVSCVLA,' 

under a man with a bent bow. 

' " Mary, Hannah, Anne, Alice, daughtei's of John and Doi-othy Murdoch, have 
presented this seat to the garden which we love. 1905." Horto nobis di/ecto had 
been a more graceful rendering. 

'"This little corner pleases me better than all the world beside." 

Horace, Odes ii. 6. 

' " Know thyself" — the Attic yviifii. (TtaiTiv. "Oh Atheniajis, your wisdom reaches 
us across the centuries ! We hear your murniui-ed messages — ' Know thyself,' 
' Nothing in excess ■ ' We who have travelled so fai-, and yet so little, we who 
are still scaling the heights you reached — Athenians, we salute you ! " 

The Diary of a Looker-on, by C. Lewis Hind. 

* " Death alone discloses how feeble are the bodies of men." — Juvenal, Sat. x, 173. 

48 



GARTINCABER 

Again : 

TECVM • HABITA ■ ET • NORIS • QVAM SIT • TIBI • CVRTA • SVPELLEX.' 

The following sentiment : 

CONVIVAM ■ CAVEO • QVI SE MIHI COMPARAT ET • RES 
DESPICIT EXIGVAS,- 

may have been inspired by the haughtiness of some 
affluent neighbour ; the lord of Doune, perhaps, 
whose great castle, though now in ruins, still scowls 
defiance from the further shore of Teith. 

Even the latest addition to the old house bears 
its appropriate legend, the gable of the new draw- 
ing-room bearing one well expressing the spirit 
which has attached this family to its ancient home : 

I • DWELL ■ AMONG • MY ■ OWN • PEOPLE.^ 

Of the two avenues which, planted at right angles 
to each other, lead up to the house, the northern, 
consisting of two double rows of beeches, has been 
sorely wrecked by gales, but the west avenue is 
still intact, a remarkable and far-seen feature in 
the landscape. Running along the comb of a ridge, 
it is composed of lime trees which appear to be 
about 100 or 120 years old. The two rows are only 
fifteen feet apart ; and the trees, set very closely 
in the rows, have been drawn up to the height of 
a hundred feet. There is no nobler prospect in 
Scotland, none richer in historic association, than 

'"Live by yourself, and you will find out how ill-furni.shed is your mind." — 
Persius, iv. 52. 

^"I am on my guard against the guest who draws comparisons between himself 
and me, and contemns my slender means." 

3 2 Kings iv. 13. 

F 49 



SCOTTISH GARDENS 

that commanded from the outer end of this avenue. 
Yon white tower, standing in the newly sown 
cornland, was built to mark the centre of the 
Scottish realm ; broad and fair around it spreads the 
fertile carse, through which the looped Forth winds 
its leisurely way. You may trace its gleams till 
they are lost in the blue haze on the east, where 
the sunlit Ochils, Stirling Castle, and Polmaise 
woods arrest the eye, only a little nearer than 
blood-boultered Bannock burn and Falkirk. All 
along the southern horizon stretch the flat-topped 
Lennox Hills and Campsie Fells, their outline 
presenting marked contrast to the tumultuous range 
on the north, where Ben Ledi and Stuc-a'chroin 
still wear their snowy hoods. Far on the west Ben 
Lomond rears its cloven cone, commanding outpost 
of the Highland host. Every feature in the land- 
scape has its story for the understanding eye, from 
northward Ardoch, where Julius Agricola has left 
enduring memorial of his conquest in the earthen 
ramparts of his camp, to nearer Kippen on the 
south, where Prince Charlie's Highlanders crossed 
the Ford of Frew when last Great Britain felt the 
throes of civil strife. 

A word about the Murdochs of Gartincaber. They 
trace their descent from one Murdoch, who rendered 
yeoman service to Robert the Bruce in his hour of 
need. In the early spring of 1307, the King of Scots 
was hiding in the Galloway hill country with a few 
hundred followers. King Edward's troops beset all 

50 



GARTINCABER 

the passes : escape seemed impossible, and Bruce 
caused his men to separate into small companies, 
so as to make subsistence easier. But he appointed 
a day when they were all to muster at the hill now 
called Craigencallie, on the eastern shore of lonely 
Loch Dee. Here, in a solitary cabin, dwelt a widow,^ 
the mother of three sons, each by a different husband, 
and named Murdoch, Mackie and MacLurg. 

The King arrived first, and alone, at the 
rendezvous. Weary and half-famished, he asked the 
widow for some food ; nor asked in vain, for, said 
she, all wayfarers are welcome for the sake of one. 
"And who may that one be?" asked the King. — 
" None other than Robert the Bruce," quoth the 
goodwife, " rightful lord of this land, wha e'er gain- 
says it. He's hard pressed just now, but he'll come 
by his own, sure enough." 

This was good hearing for the King, who made 
himself known at once, was taken into the house 
and sat down to the best meal he had eaten for 
many days. While he was so employed, the three 
sons returned, whose mother straightway made them 
do obeisance to their liege lord. They declared their 
readiness to enter his service at once, but the King 
would put their prowess as marksmen to the test 
before engaging them. Two ravens sat together on 
a crag a bowshot off; the eldest son, Murdoch, 
let fly at them and transfixed both with one 

' The name Craigencallie signifies in Gaelic " the old woman's crag," and is cited 
in evidence of the truth of the legend. 

51 



SCOTTISH GARDENS 

arrow. Next, Mackie shot at a raven flying over- 
head, and brought it to the ground, and the King 
was satisfied, although poor MacLurg missed his 
mark altogether. 

In after years, when the widow's woi'ds had been 
fulfilled by Bruce coming to his own and being acknow- 
ledged King of Scots, he sent for the widow and 
asked her to name the reward she had earned by 
her timely hospitality. 

" Just gie me," said she, " yon wee bit hassock o' 
land that lies atween Palnure and Penkiln" — two 
streams flowing into Wigtown Bay. 

The King granted her request. The " bit hassock," 
being about five miles long and three broad, was 
divided between the three sons, from whom descended 
the families of Murdoch of Cumloden, Mackie of 
Larg, and MacLurg of Kirouchtrie. Cumloden re- 
mained the property of the family of Murdoch 
till 1738, when it was sold to the Earl of Galloway 
to discharge an accumulation of debt. The fine 
shooting of the founder of the family is com- 
memorated in the arms borne by his descendants, 
and duly enrolled in the Lyon Register, viz., Argent, 
two ravens hanging palewise, sable, with an arrow 
through both their heads fess-wise, p-oper. 

In the Justiciary Records of Scotland there is 
brief record of a horrible outrage perpetrated upon 
Patrick Murdoch of Cumloden in 1605. Robert and 
John, sons of Peter M' Do wall of Machermore, a near 
neighbour of Cumloden, were arraigned upon a charge 

52 



GARTINGABER 

of having seized Murdoch and his servant Peter 
M'Kie, and cut oflf their right hands. Peter M'Dowall 
was accepted as surety for his sons, who were liberated 
on their father's undertaking that they would appear 
for trial at Kirkcudbright, after receiving fifteen days' 
notice. But the M'Dowalls were a powerful clan. 
When the case was called at the assizes, a jury 
could not be empannelled, twenty-seven persons who 
were summoned preferring to pay the statutory fine 
rather than serve ; and we hear no more either of 
the malefactors or their victims. 



53 



PRINCES STEEET GARDENS 



EDINBURGH 




RAVELLERS have been heard to utter 
unkind things about the climate of 
Edinburgh, which has been much the 
same, I suppose, for the last thousand 
years ; and those who have not visited 
the city may have been deterred from doing so by its 
by-name of "Auld Reekie," which its inhabitants do 
not resent, albeit that of the " Modern Athens " may 
be more alluring. In truth, both the climate and the 
atmosphere are compatible with horticulture of a very 
high class ; for the first is no worse than the rest 
of the east coast, where there is no dearth of fruits 
and of flowers, and the second is singularly free from 
smoke for a town of 317,459 inhabitants. Edinburgh 
earned its name of Auld Reekie from no internal 
murkiness ; it was conferred by a famous golfer of 
the eighteenth century, James Durham of Largo, 
who, from his home in Fife, used to watch the 
chimneys of the capital, and, as Robert Chambers 
records, "was in the habit of regulating the time of 
evening worship by the appearance of the smoke of 
Edinburgh. When it increased in density, in conse- 

54 



PRINCES STREET GARDENS 

quence of the good folk preparing supper, he would 
say, * It is time, noo, bairns, to tak the Imiks and 
gang to our beds, for yonder's Auld Reekie, I 
see, putting on her nightcap.'" And the nickname 
was confirmed and made in-evocable by a later and 
greater authority than James Durham. " Yonder 
stands Auld Reekie," says Adam Woodcock to 
young Roland Graeme, "you may see the smoke 
hover over her at twenty miles distant, as the gos- 
hawk hangs over a plump of young wild ducks." ' 

Of fresh air and light there is no lack in modern 
Edinburgh. One longs to bring back Sir William 
Brereton, were it but to cause him to recant the 
harsh judgment he passed upon the city in 1636. 

" The slutti.shness and ua.stiness of this people is such that 
I cannot omit the particularizing thereof. . . their houses and 
halls and kitchens have such a noisome taste, a savour, and 
that so strong, as it doth offend you so soon as you come 
within their wall ; yea, sometimes when I have light from my 
horse, I have felt the distaste of it before I have come into 
my house ; yea, I never came to my own lodging in Edinburgh, 
or went out, but I was constrained to hold my nose, or to 
use wormwood, or some such scented plant." 

Much more and worse has this stern old Puritan 
to reproach the sanitation of Edinburgh withal ; but 
that was more than two centuries before Sir 
Henry Littlejohn appeared on the scene. = 

' The Abbot, chap. xvii. 

- Sir Henry was chief sanitary authority in the city for forty-six years, retiring 
under the Civil Service age regulations in 1906 with a remarkable record of good 
work to his credit, and, it is to be hoped, many years of well-earned repose before him. 

55 



SCOTTISH GARDENS 

The series of Scottish garden types would be far 
from complete if it did not include a town garden, 
and certain it is that we Scots owe much gratitude 
to the municipal rulers of our metropolis for the 
admirable manner in which the ground along the south 
side of Princes Street is beautified. Miss Wilson's 
view is taken in the eastern garden, between the 
Doric temple on the Mound, upon which John 
Ruskin erewhile discharged the fluent vials of his 
wrath, and the great monument which, perhaps, owes 
its magnificence even more to the degree in which Sir 
Walter Scott's personal character endeared him to 
his countrymen as a man than to their recognition 
of his accomplishment as a poet. Adam Black, 
founder of the well-known firm of publishers, un- 
doubtedly deserved well of his fellow-citizens, for he 
was twice Lord Provost of Edinburgh, and worthily 
represented that city in Parliament ; but when 
they resolved to commemorate him they acted some- 
what unkindly in erecting his statue in such near 
proximity to the canopy which soars over the homely 
figure of " the Shirra," and practically eclipses the 
lesser monument. 

Impressively beautiful as she is in a degree beyond 
any other city in the British Isles, Edinburgh might 
have become still more so had men foreseen what 
modern methods of sanitation have rendered possible. 
When the city wall was razed after the middle of 
the eighteenth century, before the New Town had 
come into existence, the hollow between the Old 

56 



PRINCES STREET GARDENS 

Town and Princes Street was occupied by the Nor' 
Loch, a sheet of water which formed an important 
part of the military defences of the city, but 
which we may well imagine had become the ofleusive 
receptacle of the waste products of a growing popu- 
lation. Accordingly it was drained away, and a 
matchless opportunity for landscape gardening was 
lost for ever. Still, the great glen remained, capable 
of conversion into a green valley with pleasant groves ; 
but all this was irremediably marred when, in 1844, 
the North British Railway was driven through the 
old bed of the loch, filling all the air with smoke 
and dreadful noise. 

Down to this time, the eastern part of this 
ground had been let to a nurseryman or market- 
gardener ; but the Town Council now resumed posses- 
sion, building the terraces and parapets and forming 
the walks which complete the design of the Scott 
memorial. More and more care and money was 
applied to the adornment of what became known as 
East Princes Street Gardens, until, under the ad- 
ministration of Mr. John M'Hattie, they now present 
a really remarkable example of spring and summer 
gardening in the formal manner. All the greater 
credit is due to Mr. M'Hattie and his staff for this 
result because of the stormy position which these 
gardens occupy, fully exposed to the pitiless easterly 
gales which blow in from the North Sea with relent- 
less persistency. 

Miss Wilson's study was made in spring when 

G 57 



SCOTTISH GARDENS 

tulips and wall-flowers display their vigorous hues. 
The eflect is softer in summer, when the tints 
blend with gentler gradation, but in autumn the 
borders flame out again with a blaze of chrysanthe- 
mums, carrying one well into the dark days which 
intervene before the coming of the crocuses. 

In 1876 the Corporation acquired the West Princes 
Street Gardens, hitherto reserved for the proprietors 
of houses ex adverso. These grounds are of very 
great extent, lying right up to the foot of the Castle 
Rock, and, although bisected by the broad railroad, 
have been converted into a veritable jjleasaunce, 
less formal in manner than the East Gardens, Under 
Mr. M'Hattie's care, great improvements have been 
eflfected ; hardy trees, shrubs, and herbs have been 
liberally planted, and many borders are devoted to 
spi'ing and summer bedding. Warmly must the Cor- 
poration and their servants be congratulated on the 
result of their enterprise. They have turned the land 
at their disposal to the very best account, and created 
a brilliant foreground to the Old Town and the Castle 
such as those who remember Princes Street Gardens 
forty years ago could never have anticipated. We can 
only sigh after the departed Nor' Loch when we 
reflect what a feature it might have been made when 
purified and committed to Mr. M'Hattie's skilful 
hands to work into his landscape. 



58 



BABERTON 



MIDLOTHIAN 




ABERTON is a tyiJical example of the 
kind of country residence erected in 
the eighteenth century by professional 
men whose business lay in the metro- 
polis at a time when all classes in 
Scotland were beginning to feel the beneficial effects 
of the legislative union between the richer and the 
poorer realm. Whether that be the origin of this 
pretty demesne or not, I know not for certain, 
having had access to no records of the past of 
Baberton ; but the house, viewed from outside, 
appears to be of the date indicated, with some 
pleasing architectural features characterising that 
period. Since its foundation, Edinburgh has spread 
far beyond her pristine limits, and the district has 
become thoroughly suburban ; but the owners of 
Baberton have managed to keep their neighbours at 
ample distance ; only a golf course impinges upon 
the south side of their demesne, which remains a 
silvan oasis in the suiTounding labyrinth of villadom. 
The garden lies within walls in the fold of a 
59 



SCOTTISH GARDENS 

shallow glen, forming two wings divided by a 
central wall. The northernmost wing, sloping fairly 
to the south, is just a herb garden in the old 
Scottish manner, with aged apple trees, grass alleys 
and borders well filled with summer flowers. 

In the southern wing, the buttresses of the 
outer wall supply a pretty feature, of which advan- 
tage has been taken to establish thereon stonecrop 
and saxifrage. From this a steep rustic path 
descends into the hollow, which Miss Wilson has 
depicted in its vernal brightness, with a glimpse 
of the more formal garden beyond. There is also 
some well-constructed rock-work on the steep bank, 
whereon a small collection of alpine plants are thriv- 
ing satisfactorily. The whole enclosure appears not 
to exceed an acre in extent, but careful cultivation 
and discriminating care have rendered it far more 
beautiful and interesting than many more ambitious 
and extensive gardens. 



60 




BABERTON. 



POLLOK 



RENFREWSHIRE 




N the year of grace 1270 or thereabouts 
Sir Aymer Maxwell of Caerlaverock 
granted to his third son, Sir John 
Maxwell, the lands of Nether Pollok 
in the county of Renfrew, from whom 
the present owner, Sir John Stirling Maxwell, is 
twenty-third in direct descent, through his grand- 
mother, who married Archibald Stirling of Keir. Six 
hundred and thirty-seven years have wrought much 
change in nearly every part of King Edward's realm, 
but nowhere has the landscape undergone more 
wholesale metamorphosis within a like period than 
in the valley of the White Cart. 

When Sir John Maxwell took possession of his 
estate in the thirteenth century, Glasgow was a 
modest hamlet, clustering round the brand-new 
cathedral of Bishop Joceline ; it has now overflowed 
upon 11,861 acres on both banks of the Clyde, 
which winds through the municipal area for a 
distance of five miles and a half. 

It is not only the land surface which has altered 
61 



SCOTTISH GARDENS 

in appearance, forest and crag making way for 
closely packed dwellings and factories : the Clyde 
and its lower tributaries were allowed to become so 
foully polluted that a lifeless, evil-smelling current 
flows where once the silvery salmon thronged up 
from the firth and innumerable water-fowl flocked 
for food. That is in process of being remedied by 
a painstaking municipality ; but who shall purge the 
sky of the smoke rising from the hearths of 780,000 
inhabitants and the reek belched from a thousand 
factory chimneys and gas-works? 

Nor is that all that must be reckoned. In a wide 
circle round Glasgow have arisen police-burghs — 
Kinning Park, Govan, Partick, PoUokshaws, Cathcart, 
etc. — each with a population exceeding that of many 
a mediseval city, each with its smoke-producing 
industries, and only a little further afield is Paisley 
with 87,000 inhabitants, Johnstone with 12,000, 
Port-Glasgow with 18,000, Greenock with 68,000, 
all combining to darken the air ; and, as though 
that were not enough to discourage horticulture, 
all the land unbuilt on is threaded with railways, 
honeycombed with coal-pits, studded with smelting 
furnaces, pouring forth volumes of smoke night and 
day. So it has come to pass that from whatever 
quarter the wind sets, it is charged with the 
products of combustion — in other words, with coal 
smoke. 

This, as every forester, gardener and amateur 
can testify, is a relentless foe to almost every kind 

62 



POLLOK 

of vegetable life. Strange to say, mosses and lichens, 
humblest in the scale, succumb first, so that in all 
this region stones and tree stems are devoid of that 
kindly covering which always gathers upon them 
in a pure atmosphere. The next to suffer are trees 
themselves ; for although many fine elms, beeches, 
oaks, sycamores, ash, and even pines survive in this 
wide strath, these grew to maturity under conditions 
very different from those now prevailing, and the 
growth of young trees, especially couifers and oaks, 
is sorely checked and blighted by carbon deposit 
and sulphurous fumes. 

Nevertheless, horticulture dies hard ; the instinct 
of every man owning a garden is to obey the primaeval 
command " to dress it and to keep it " ; and Miss 
Wilson has chosen a scene in the garden at Pollok 
as an example of what combined skill and resolution 
may accomplish in the most forbidding environment. 

The subject of the picture is a terrace wall, con- 
structed only five or six years ago of ashlar masonry, 
with slits purposely left between some of the joints 
for the insertion of suitable flowering plants. 

The park of Pollok is but a green oasis round 
which Glasgow and the neighbouring burghs have 
flowed like a dark and rapidly rising tide. Yet here, 
on this terrace wall, within constant sound of steam 
hooters and whistles, steam hammers and pumps, 
you may see alpine flowers blooming as profuselj 
and with colours as clear as they do on the loftiest 
solitudes on earth and in the purest atmosphere. 

63 



SCOTTISH GARDENS 

The chief display when this picture was painted — in 
May — came from the varieties of Auhrietia with their 
hanging cushions of purple and mauve, and golden 
Alyssum. Common things, these, yet priceless in 
their effect and unfailing in the reward they make 
for attention to their simple wants. A month later, 
the purple and gold had been dimmed ; a rose-coloured 
mist had spread along the wall, created by different 
kinds of dwarf Dia7ithus and Silene, with the common 
sea-thrift of our shores ; while through the mist shone 
stars of Arenaria and many species of saxifrage and 
stonecrop. Dwarf bell flowers, also, spread blue 
curtains over the stones, among the most effective 
being the glaucous variety of Caw/panula garganica, 
known as hirsuta, C. pusilla and the hybrid " G. F. 
Wilson," C. muralis, which must now be sought for 
under the preposterous title of C. portenschlageana. 

All these are anybody's flowers, anybody's, that 
is, who has the wit to raise them from seed, for they 
are not particular as to soil {though most of them 
show gratitude for an admixture and occasional top- 
dressing of old lime rubbish), or climate, as their 
luxuriance in this Glasgow atmosphere amply testifies. 
But among these commoner things are herbs, if not 
of greater beauty, of greater rarity. Specially to 
be commended are the little Himalayan Potentilla 
nitida, with silvery leaves and delicate flesh-coloured 
flowers, like miniature Tudor roses ; Myosotis rupicola, 
an exquisite forget-me-not which likes to be wedged 
tightly into a rock crevice ; our native purple saxifrage 

64 



POLLOK 

S. oppositifolia, the golden-flowered S. sancta from far 
Mount Athos, the fragrant S. apiculata, thickly set 
with panicles of sulphur-coloured blossoms, exactly 
the hue of a wild primrose, in early spring ; and, 
earliest and finest of all, the snowy-petalled S. 
Bwrseriana. Then the encrusted section of rock-foils, 
bewildering in variety, delight in such a position, 
growing into such exquisite bosses and wreaths that 
one almost grudges the profusion of their bloom, 
which conceals the delicate carving of theii' foliage. 

It is wonderful how readily these and other 
mountaineers adapt themselves to their unpromising 
environment. The truth is that, like the red deer, 
they have taken to the mountain tops because they 
have been crowded out of the low country, where 
they were overwhelmed in competition with other 
herbs ; so they survive only in places where their 
constitution enables them to endure conditions 
unfavourable to rank vegetation. A notable and 
oft-quoted example of this is the common thrift, 
which is found all round our coasts at sea level and 
on the summits of some of our highest mountains, 
both these situations being unfavourable to the 
majority of lowland vegetation ; but one may search 
in vain for a single specimen of thrift between these 
two extremes. That it would thrive anywhere is 
proved by the ease with which it may be cultivated 
in gardens at any level ; cultivation, in this inscance, 
amounting to no more than the suppression of com- 
peting vegetation. 

H 65 



SCOTTISH GARDENS 

In planting a terrace wall like that at Pollok 
it is necessary to raise seedlings or cuttings which 
may be inserted while still small in the crevices of 
the masonry. After being settled in their places 
they drive their roots to almost incredible distance 
into the solid earth behind the wall, which protects 
them alike from summer drought and trying varia- 
tions of temperature in winter, while the vertical 
surface ensures rapid drainage and protection from 
frost. 

The narrow border at the wall-foot provides a 
congenial home for choice bulbous and other plants, 
which, if carefully selected, may keep up a con- 
tinuous display almost throughout the year. The 
list of suitable plants for this purpose might be 
made a long one. The following one contains sug- 
gestion for a small collection which may be added 
to at pleasure, suitable for a northerly climate. 
December to March — 

Iris reticulata and persica. 

Cyclamen coum and vernum. 

Eranthis hyemalis. 

Hepaticas in variety. 

A donis amui -ends. 
March and April — 

Scilla sibirica, ammna and hifolia. 

Chionodoxa Lucilioe and Sardensis. 

Narcissus minor and other dwarf daffodils. 

Crocus in variety. 

Erica carnea. 

66 



r 




POLLOK 

Anemone hlanda. 

Calliantheinum mtcefolium. 

Erythronium in variety. 

MuHtari Szovitzianum and other choice species. 

Fritillaria aurea. 

Tulipa 'pulcJiella, Lownii, saxatilis, etc. 

Sisyrinchium grandifloruin. 

Primula rosea and denticulata. 
May and June — 

Tulipa Greigi, Unifolia, etc. 

Daphne Gneorum and Blageana. 

Miiscari " Heavenly Blue." 

Sanguinaria canadensis. 

A7iemone nennorosa var. Rohinsoniana. 

Incariyillea grandijiora. 

Hyacinthus amethystinus. 

Ranunculus ainplexicaulis. 

Scilla verna. 

Sierembergia rivularis. 

Polygonum sphceroceph alum. 

Delphinium nudicaule. 

Ornithogalum nutans. 

Iris pumila and other dwarf species. 

Primula luteola, sikkimensis, etc. 
July and August — 

Hypericum fragile and reptans. 

Gaidtheria trichomanes. 

Allium pedeinontanum and other choice dwarf 
species. 

Erica Maweana. 

67 



SCOTTISH GARDENS 

Andromeda poli/oUa. 

Ajiof/iatheca cruenta. 

Primula capitata. 
Sej^tember and October — 

Colchicmn speciosu7n and other choice species. 

Crocus speciosus and other choice species. 

Polygonum vaccinifolium. 

Cyclamen europceum and lihanoticum. 

Cornus canadensis. 
November and December — 

Schizostylus cocci^ieus. 

Hellehorm altifolius. 

Primroses, garden varieties. 



68 



STONEFIELD 



ARGYLLSHIRE 




(ELO FAVENTE— weather permitting— 
the shores of Clyde and the Kyles of 
Bute present constantly shifting scenes 
of beauty to those who go down to the 
sea in the fine ships the lona, the 
Columba or the Grenadier; but of the many thousands 
who take their pleasure in this way every summer, 
what a small percentage suspect what treasures are 
stored in the sloping woods on either hand. No 
English gardener will believe, till he has seen for 
himself, what luxuriant growth of tender exotics can 
be produced on the west coast of Scotland, wherever 
it is possible to provide shelter from Atlantic gales. 
The fierce winds and mighty rollers that waste their 
fury for weeks together on the rock-bound western 
isles, can work no ruin in the long, narrow fjords 
which intersect the mainland. I was prepared, there- 
fore, to find evidence of a very gentle climate along 
the shores of Loch Fyne ; but what I found exceeded 
all anticipation. 

If you look at the map of Argyll, you will see 
69 



SCOTTISH GAEDENS 

that the promontory of Cantyre, a finger of land 
about forty miles long and, on an average, not more 
than seven miles wide, only escapes severance from 
the mainland by means of a strip of ground a mile 
wide. When Malcolm Canmore ceded to Magnus 
Barefoot, King of Norway, all the islands "between 
which and the mainland he could pass in a galley 
with its rudder shipped," the Northman secured 
Cantyre by running his craft ashore at the head 
of West Loch Tarbert, and causing it to be drawn 
on rollers across the isthmus to Loch Fyne, with his 
own hand on the tiller. Three hundred years later, 
Robert the Bruce repeated the feat, in token of his 
lordship of the Isles, and built a keep at the eastern 
end of the portage, which still presides, grim and 
time-worn, over the snug little town of Tarbert, with 
its tortuous, but profound, harbour. These incidents 
are commemorated in the name of the place, Tarbert 
signifying " boat draft " or portage, from the Gaelic 
taruinn hada. 

North of the isthmus lies the district of Knapdale, 
near the southern extremity of which is Mr. George 
Campbell's fine demesne of Stonefield, facing the blue 
waters of Loch Fyne on the east and sheltered from 
prevailing winds by high ground on the south-west 
and north-west. To enumerate half the rare forms 
of vegetation which thrive among the ample woodland 
of Stonefield would fill a very long chapter. Readers 
will kindly be content with the bare notes of a visit 
paid to these gTOunds in mid-April. 

70 




•S:.'r^<?' 







STONEFIELD. 



STONEFIELD 

The first things to attract attention are some 
specimens of Eucalyptus gunni, the tallest of which 
is 80 feet high, and 5 feet in circumference at 4 
feet from the ground, with a beautiful clean bole of 
25 feet. The blue gum {E. globulus), though perfectly 
hardy against frost, grows such length of soft wood 
that it constantly gets broken by the wind. Probably 
if planted in mass, the trees would protect each 
other, but E. gu7ini is evidently a preferable species. 

Near the foot of one of these gum-trees is a 
bush of the Chilian Desfontainea spinosa, a mass of 
rich myrtle green, 75 feet in circumference and 14 
feet high. It has been severely cut in on one side, 
to prevent it overspreading a gravel path, and, when 
thickly set with its scarlet and yellow blossoms, must 
indeed be "a sight for sair e'en." Another shrub, 
from the southern hemisphere, Griselinia littoralis 
from New Zealand, here assumes the proportions of 
a small tree, 30 feet high. Mitraria coccinea, seldom 
seen in British gardens, and, when seen, usually of 
very modest dimensions, has grown so dense and 
spread so wide that last year a hen pheasant chose 
a bush of it for her nesting place. Philesia huxifolia 
rivals it in size ; Ahutilon vitifolium, 15 feet high, 
Myrtus {Eugenia) apiculata and Cordyline Australis each 
20 feet high, Escallmda rubra with a stem girth of 
2 feet, Buddleia Colvillei 9 feet high, are a few of the 
things most worth noting before passing on to 
examine the rhododendrons, which are the special 
glory of the place. By the by, why can we not 

71 



SCOTTISH GARDENS 

drop that cumbrous polysyllable and adopt the 
American name " rose bay " or " rose laurel " ? 

The presence of these fine plants dates from the 
'forties, when Sir Joseph Hooker, with youthful 
ardour, was revelling in the floral wealth of the 
Himalayas. Dr. Campbell, of the family of Oronsay, 
who founded the sanatorium of Darjeeling in 1835, 
shared Hooker's enthusiasm, and sent home quantities 
of seed, some of which found its way to Stonefield. 
A noble crop has sprung from it. Here are trees of 
Rhododendron arhoreum 30 feet high with blood-red, 
pink or white blossoms, and with stems thicker than 
any wood-nymph's waist ; R. Falconeri 25 feet high, 
carrying among its great felted leaves between 200 
and 300 trusses of waxy bells ; R. eximium, probably 
a local variety of the last-named, loaded with bloom ; 
R. barbatum, the bearded rose-bay, in both varieties, 
one a month later in bloom than the other, both 
excelling all their kind in the glow of blood-red 
flowers. R. Thomsoni stands 15 feet high and 20 feet 
in diameter, and among other treasures may be men- 
tioned Rhododendron grande (argenteum), a shy flowerer, 
but worth growing for its splendid foliage alone ; 
R. niveum with purple flowers and leaves lined with 
white peau de Suede R. Hodgsoni with leaves like 
Falconeri but with rosy flowers, R. fragrantissimum, 
cam.panulatum and ciliatum, all revelling in conditions 
of season and temperature as unlike their native 
levels of from 8000 to 12,000 feet as one could well 
imagine. In the Himalayas, all growth is restrained 

72 



STONEFIELD 

until late in spring, when it is suddenly released for 
a summer burst, and as suddenly brought to a stop 
for a long winter rest ; whereas in the West Highlands 
of Scotland there is no such demarcation of seasons ; 
growth is encouraged from year's end to year's end, 
subject to sharp snaps at uncertain intervals. It is 
truly remarkable how well these fine plants accom- 
modate themselves to every trial except that of rude 
winds. 

Perhaps the most distinguished, because the rarest, 
of the rhododendrons which were in flower at the 
time of my visit was R. caTupylocarpum, 9 feet high, 
bearing trusses of beautiful waxy bells, clear canary 
yellow with a purple stain at the base of each bell. 



73 




CASTLE KENNEDY 

WIGTOWNSHIRE 

RAVELLERS to Ireland by Stranraer 
and Larne begin to collect their minor 
movables when the express rattles over 
the lofty viaduct at Glenluce. Near 
this point the line leaves the moorland 
through which it runs almost continuously for forty 
miles westward of Castle Douglas, and enters 
upon a flat cultivated tract. Glimpses of the sea, 
which at no distant geological period covered this 
plain, may be had on either hand ; Loch Ryan 
forming the northern, as Luce Bay the southern, 
horizon. 

At the narrowest part of the isthmus between 
these seas a liberal space has been devoted to 
landscape gardening on a heroic scale. On the 
right of the railway, three or four miles east of 
Stranraer, the traveller may view the ample 
demesne, or (to use the native phrase) the "policies" 
of Castle Kennedy ; and, if he is master of his own 
time, will do well to devote a morning to closer 
inspection thereof. 

74 




CASILE KENNEDY. 



CASTLE I^NNEDY 

If there is a prevailing blemish in British park 
scenery, it is a tendency to sameness. That has 
been avoided at Castle Kennedy by a peculiar 
treatment of natural features, in themselves the 
reverse of imposing, such as I have not seen at- 
tempted on a similar scale elsewhere. Here, on 
the isthmus between two seas, lie two ample sheets 
of fresh water, the Black and the White Lochs 
of Inch ; and the inner isthmus between these 
lakes ha,s been wrought into a strange complexity 
of terraces and grassy slopes. The ruins of Castle 
Kennedy, a good example of the domestic archi- 
tecture of the seventeenth century, destroyed by 
fire in 1715, stand on a green plateau at one end 
of this isthmus. At the other end, best part of a 
mile distant, is the modern mansion of Lochinch, 
residence of the Earl of Stair, a spacious specimen 
of that style which was developed under French 
influence in the sixteenth century ; when country 
houses, ceasing to be purely defensive, assumed 
more hospitable features. 

How comes it that two such great castles 
stand fronting each other within the same 
demesne ? Was it not said by those of olden 
time, and have not our fathers declared unto us, 
that — 

" 'Twixt Wigtown and the town of Ayr, 

Portpatrick and the Cruives o' Cree, 
Nae man need think for to bide there 
Except he ride wi' Kennedy." 
75 



SCOTTISH GARDENS 

Ah ! but time brings strange revenges. About ten 
miles east of Castle Kennedy, on a bleak and 
boggy moorland, are the ruins of Carscreuch ; a 
mansion whereof Symson, the seventeenth century 
chronicler of this district, drily observes that it 
"might have been more pleasant if it had been 
in a more pleasant place." This most ineligible 
residence, shortly after Symson described it, passed 
by marriage into possession of Sir James Dal- 
rymple, first Viscount Stair. Some three hundred 
years previously, the Kennedy clan had violently 
despoiled the Dalrymples of their modest posses- 
sions in Ayrshire, accomplishing that purpose not 
without much arson and bloodshed. The turn of 
the Dalrymples came when the seventh Earl of 
Cassilis, chief of the Kennedys, floundered into in- 
numerable scrapes in covenanting times. Generation 
after generation, the Dalrymples were serviceable 
lawyers. Acre by acre, farm by farm, the wide 
lands of Kennedy in Wigtownshire passed to that 
family which owns them at this day. 

This first Viscount Stair, President of the Court 
of Session, had a daughter Janet, out of whose 
troubled fortunes Scott created Lucy Ash ton, the 
Bride of Lammermoor. The father of the seventh 
Earl of Cassilis, who, as aforesaid, was forced to 
part with his territory to his hereditary enemy, 
also figures in Scottish romance, for his first wife's 
elopement furnished a theme for the well-known 
ballad of Johnnie Faa. 

76 



CASTLE KENNEDY 

" The gypsies cam' to our lord's yett, 
And but they sang sweetly ; 
They sang sae sweet and sae very complete 
That down came the fair lady. 

And she cam' tripping doun the stair, 

And a' her maids before her ; 
As sune as they saw her weel-faured face, 

They cuist their glamour o'er her. 

' come wi' me,' says Johnnie Faa, 

* come wu' me, my dearie ; 
For I vow and I swear by the hilt o' my sword 

That your lord shall nae mair come near ye.' 

' Gae tak' frae me this gay mantle. 

And bring to me a plaidie ; 
For if kith and kin and a' had sworn, 

I'll follow the gypsy laddie. 

' Yestreen I lay in a weel-made bed, 

Wi' my gude lord beside me ; 
This night I'll lie in a tenant's barn, 

Whatever shall betide me!'"^ 

It was John second Earl of Stair, better known 
as Field-Marshal Stair, who, in the interval between 
his military and diplomatic achievements, planned 

' It is only fair to the memory of this countess, who was Lady Jean Hamilton, 
daughter of the first Earl of Haddington, that the legend of her elopement is 
amply disproved by the fact that she lived with her husband for 21 years, 
and that he spoke of her with much affection in letters written after her 
death. W. E. Aytoun carefully examined the character of this ballad, which 
he regarded as " by far the most mysterious of Scottish traditionary tales," 
and failed to reconcile it with any real incident. In publishing it in his Ballads 
of Scotland, he suggested that it " was a malignant fiction, possibly trumped 
up to annoy Bishop Burnet (who married Lady Cassilis's daughter) who had 
many enemies." 

77 



SCOTTISH GARDENS 

the terraces and pleasure grounds of Castle Kennedy, 
and embellished his lands with much planting. The 
work lasted from 1730 to 1740 under direction of one 
Thomas M'AUa, from whose copious correspondence 
with his employer a couple of extracts may be per- 
mitted, were it only as an example of eighteenth 
century orthography. 

Castle Kennedy January y' 29"" 1737. 
I reciued your lordship's leter which giues me great 
incuredgement to be kerfull and Diligent about what of your 
lordsheps business I am Intrusted with, the principal! work 
nou in hand is that great walk alongs the Canall. Your lordshep 
in the leter I got told me ther uas six troup horses to stand 
at this pies In the Stabell to asist me in Carin on the work 
they bing mothereth [moderate] wrought uold ben mor the 
beter than uors [worse] and the work uold aduanced much 
quiker but ther is non of them Com her as yet, they bing so 
long Delied [delayed] and the Riding Exerces shortly coming 
on I fer I will be littl the beter of them. I haue ben Remouing 
the tris out of the gret land belo the bellvadair It will teak 
a good deall of work but I sie by what Is don of It that it 
will beutifi that pleace mor then what I could conceue from the 
belluadair [belvedere] the bason apers lik a great glas ... I 
humbly thank your lordshep for the gret Incuregen leter I got 
It was very Inlivening and reuiuing to me. 

The "troup horses" referred to belonged to the 
Scots Greys, of which famous regiment the Field- 
Marshal was Colonel, and had a squadron thereof 
permanently quartered in Wigtownshire. Five years 
later, honest M'Alla was in difficulties, not for want of 
horses but of that which "makes the mare to go." 

78 



CASTLE KENNEDY 

Jan'- y 5* 17S8. 

... I an nou diging the ground to Inlarge the planting 
at baluadair [Belvidere] as your lordship ordered. I am also 
Remouing that strip of plan ten on the uest sid of the flourin 
sherub wildernes the Alterations that uas med the last year 
and this on both sids of the flouring sherub wildernes, and the 
perter [parterre] beutifais that sid to perfection from Mount 
Malbarou to Mount Eliner ; ther can be no finer prospect then 
it is nou ... I haue planted a lin of uery good bich [beech] 
at the foot of the bre [Ijrae]. I was obledged to fors Earth to 
plant in them, for ther is no Earth in that bre ; it is a lous dry 
runin sand. Ther is no tri uill grou on the fac of that bre, it 
bing so lous dray sand, without any mixter of Earth. . . . Your 
lordshep desirs me to giue som money to the masons hir, but 
I ashour your lordshep I haue not on peny to my self Your 
lordshep ordered Mr. Roos to giue me tuenty jjound of my 
by gon uages, but he uold not giue me on farthen. I am uery 
sor straitened for som money I am deu to som pipell hir causes 
me nou to aplay to your lordshep for rellif I thank God I 
haue your lordshep to aply to; I sie hou it uold be with me 
uer it otheruays." 

Noil sihi sed posteris. Upon no human undertaking 
does the decree sic vos iwn vohis attend so inevitably 
as upon tree planting. Scarcely had the Marshal's 
oaks cast their foliage a hundred times before a 
ruthless edict of the seventh Earl, known and 
dreaded by country folk as Hobblin' Jock, owing to 
a limp in his gait, laid every stick of them low, and 
the pleasure grounds went back to wilderness. The 
eighth Earl of Stair, succeeding in 1840, found a 
plan of the grounds in a gardener's cottage, and set 

79 



SCOTTISH GARDENS 

to work to restore them. They were maintained and 
greatly beautified by his successors, especially by the 
tenth Earl, who died in 1903 at the age of 84. It 
is to his assiduous cai^e that the present generation 
owes the fine collection of exotic conifers, broad- 
leaved trees and flowering shrubs. The landscape 
now only lacks what is held in store for generations 
unborn — the grace of aged timber — to fulfil the ideal 
of a lordly chace. 

A great part of the isthmus between the lakes is 
devoted to a pinetum. Favoured by the mild western 
air, the Californian Finns insignis (or radiata, Sargent) 
forms great domes of velvety bottle green, and the 
feathery Monterey cypress ((7. macrocarpa) grows as 
freely beside it as both do on the Pacific sea-board 
near San Francisco. Unluckily the gales which sweep 
across the broad lake on the west have wrought sore 
destruction among some of the firs. The Blue Avenue, 
for instance, as Sir Joseph Hooker named a double 
line of Ahies nohilis on the slope facing the new 
castle, has been sadly knocked about, and the severe 
thinning practised in order to produce what are 
termed specimens has had the opposite result in 
many cases. Pines and firs are creatures of company, 
only displaying their special character of lofty, straight 
growth when they are disciplined as a forest. Yet 
there are growths of great beauty in the more 
sheltered places. The Himalayan Cupressus torulosa,^ 
tolerant only of British climate in the mildest dis- 

1 Dr. Augustine Henry pronounces this specimen to be Dacridium Franklinii. 

80 



CASTLE KENNEDY 

tricts, attracts attention from every arboriculturist. 
A double avenue of Auracarias shows how much 
these archaic trees gairn)y company of their own 
kind ; or, rather, how much they lose by being 
isolated. Self-sown seedlings spring up freely under 
these monkey-puzzles ; other conifers which propagate 
themselves very readily, where ground game does not 
come, are Abies nohilis and Wehhiana. 

But after all, our concern is more with the 
garden and flowering things than with forest trees. 
Miss Wilson has planted her easel where the two 
are inextricably blended, a bank of azaleas backed 
by some aged evergreen oaks, which, by a lucky 
chance, escaped the doom prepared for the rest of 
the woodland by Hobblin' Jock. The water in the 
foreground is M 'Allans "bason lik a great glas." 

The most remarkable feature, however, at Castle 
Kennedy is the vast number of choice rhododendrons, 
including many that are not usually reckoned 
hardy. There are hundreds of R. arboreufu, 
cinnamomeum and campanulatum, chiefly white and 
pale-tinted, with which the glorious scarlet of R. 
harhatum and Thomsoni contrasts with almost startling 
efi'ect. Rose and carmine are supplied by other 
varieties of R. arhoreum and by its hybrids, while 
R. niveum supplies a note of deep mauve, with 
which, later in the season, one's eye is apt to be 
surfeited when the common R. ponticum is in bloom. 
To see this matchless display in perfection, the first 
week in May is generally the best time. But go 



SCOTTISH GARDENS 

there when you will, there is always plenty to 
delight anybody, whether he be curious in rare and 
beautiful vegetation, or whether he be content to stroll 
over sunlit lawns and through shady alleys, with the 
shining lakes on either hand, peopled with hundreds 
of wild-fowl. The sward is kept to the texture of an 
Axminster carpet, with what amount of patient labour 
may be guessed from the fact that upwards of seventy 
acres are constantly shaven by mowing machines. 
It might seem unkind to dwell on these delights if 
they were only those of a private pleasure ground ; 
but thousands of visitors avail themselves every year 
of the considerate decree which opens the gates of 
this paradise to the public on two days a week. 

In the private flower-garden are some objects of 
much interest to botanists and gardeners. The 
quaint and beautiful bottle-brush shrub, Gallistemon, 
often erroneously confounded with Metrosideros and 
usually grown in greenhouses, flourishes on the 
terrace near the house with no other protection 
than a low wall and a mat cast over it in winter. 
It flowers freely and ripens seed every year. 
Near to it are such choice things as Rhaphiolepis 
japonica, Clianthus puniceus and Eugenia (Myrtus) 
apiculata. In a shrubbery hard by, some of the 
more notable plants are various species of Fittosporum, 
the Nepalese laburnum (Piptanthus), Acacia dealhata 
twenty feet high,^ and Eucalyptus globulus thirty feet. 

' Since this was written this plant has succumbed to the frost of 24th April, 
1908, which, taking etfect upon the vigorous growth induced by preceding heat, 
killed it to the ground level. 

82 



CASTLE KENNEDY 

The last named tree, which stands in a much exposed 
position, was blown down and killed to the root in 
the great storm of December, 1894, but has thrown 
up a new stem. 

Taking it all round. Castle Kennedy must be 
reckoned one of the most remarkable of the larger 
gardens of Scotland. 



83 



THE HIRSEL 



BERWICKSHIRE 




E'S awa to Birgham to buy bickers" 
is an ancient Border equivoque — how 
ancient, no man may say. It seems 
to date from the memorable treaty 
concluded at Birgham-on-Tweed on 
18th July, 1290, defining the relations that should 
subsist between the realms of England and Scotland 
after the marriage of the Maid of Norway — Margaret 
Queen of Scots — to Edward of Carnarvon, Prince 
of Wales. Death snatched the Maid on her way to 
the wedding, and there followed three hundred years 
of " bickers " and butchery between two nations of 
the same race, speech and creed, the most purpose- 
less and wasteful war that ever drained the resources 
of a civilised people. 

Little enough does Birgham now bear the aspect 
of a source of strife. Perhaps the old saying was 
coined in irony because of the inadequacy of this 
hamlet to sustain a name so great in history, for 
"bicker" means a wooden bowl as well as a battle. 
Half a score of grey roofs scattered along a green 

84 




THE HIRSEL. 



THE HIRSEL 

ridge are all that mark the birthplace of the War 
of Independence. Although no part of British soil 
has been so often soaked with good blood than this 
vale between Birgham and Coldstream, for the 
Tweed becomes from Birgham downwards the frontier 
dividing the two realms, yet nowhere have the 
traces of conflict been more completely effaced 
by a veil of verdure and flowers than in Lord 
Home's pleasant demesne of the Hirsel. 

" Poor heart ! above thy field of sorrow sighing 
For broken faith and love untimely slain, 
Leave thou the soil wherein thy dead are lying 
To the soft sunlight and the cleansing rain. 
Love works in silence, hiding all the traces 
Of bitter conflict on the trampled sod, 
And time shall show thee all earth's battle-places 
Veiled by the hand of God." 

The very name — The Hirsel — signifying a sheep-fold, 
breathes pastoral tranquillity, the very antithesis of 
Lord Home's other residences, to wit — 

" The aventurous castell of Douglass, 
That to kep sa peralous was " — 

a place of such wrathful memories that Sir Walter 
Scott chose it for the scene of his gloomy romance. 
Castle Dangerous ; and Both well Castle on the Clyde, 
where the Earls of Hereford and Angus and a few of 
King Edward's most famous knights sought refuge 
from the fatal field of Bannockburn, for it was almost 
the only Scottish fortress where the English flag 
still flew. 

85 



SCOTTISH GAEDENS 

Outwardly there is nothing in the aspect of the 
Hirsel to revive memories of the old riding days 
any more than its present owner, twelfth Earl and 
seventeenth Lord of Home, could be supposed 
capable of restoring " Jethart justice," the practice 
instituted by his ancestor in 1606, when a number 
of freebooters were first hanged, and then put upon 
their trial. The mansion is just a country gentle- 
man's roomy residence, built on the banks of the 
troutful little Leet, and comfortably screened with 
ample woodland. To view it at its fairest you 
should go there when May is melting into June, 
when the trees have just donned their summer 
finery, and golden broom and fragrant hawthorn 
turn every country lane into a chemin de Paradis. 

There is great wealth of rhododendrons in the 
Hirsel woods, not only the common — far too common — 
ponticum, but the finer hybrid varieties, which are 
not crowded together in clumps, as one too often 
sees them arranged, but planted in large measure 
and with liberal space in the glades of old Scots 
pine and birch. It is in chequered sunshine and 
shade that these princely shrubs attain their highest 
development. Planted in the open, the blossoms get 
seared by summer heat ; but in thin woodland they 
display and retain the purest hues. 

Eighty years ago Loudon took note of a fine tulip 
tree growing in the Hirsel garden, reputed at that time 
to be one hundred years old, and measuring twenty 
feet in girth at three feet above ground level. The tree 

86 



THE HIRSEL 

is still there, but it is far gone iu decay, though it 
still puts forth plenty of healthy foliage and flowers 
regularly. 

The tulip tree is seldom seen in Scotland ; more's 
the pity, for it is perfectly hardy, its growth is 
stately and its foliage exquisite. Moreover, the 
timber is of fine quality, of a clear, light yellow 
colour, much in request in the United States. 
Probably the infrequency of its appearance in 
British woodlands is owing to the diflSculty of 
nursery treatment, owing to the soft and brittle 
nature of the roots. Also, it requires careful pruning 
when young to keep it shapely, for it will not stand 
the removal of large branches in later years. Lastly, 
the tulip tree must be grown in sheltered spots, for 
the boughs are very easily broken by high winds. 



87 




SOUTH BANTASKINE 

STIRLINGSHIRE 

HOUGH the plain hums with dirt-pro- 
ducing industry and the west wind 
darkens the sky with the smoke of a 
thousand furnaces, yet on clear days 
the main features of the prospect from 
the drawing-room windows of South Bantaskine are as 
grand as they were on that far-oflf summer day when 
Wallace's brief, but immortal, career was wrecked by 
Edward of England (22nd July, 1298), or on that 
nearer winter day when the star of the Stuarts blazed 
in dying splendour, and General Hawley's red-coated 
columns were scattered before the impetuous onset 
of Lord George Murray's Highlanders (I7th January, 
1746). For it is here, on the very battle-ground of 
Falkirk, that the ladies of Bantaskine have furnished 
their borders with the choicest and brightest blossoms, 
whereof one of them. Miss Mary Wilson, has pre- 
pared the pretty glimpse in Plate XII. 

"For life is kind, and sweet things grow unbidden, 
Turning the field of strife to bloomy bowers ; 
Who may declare what secrets may lie hidden 
Beneath that veil of flowers ? " 




SOL TH HAMASKI.NK. 



SOUTH BANTASKINE 

Yes, the foreground is greatly altered ; and the 
great central plain of Scotland, which lies around, 
is tunnelled with mines, punctuated with tall black 
chimneys and scored with rattling railroads ; but 
beyond all this to the north stand, as of yore, the 
domes and crests, the cones and cusps, of the Gram- 
pians and nearer Ochils. 

The spring flush of colour was on the wane and 
the summer splendour not fully aglow, when I saw 
this garden ; nevertheless, the scene was very fair ; 
for these ladies aim at the fulfilment of Bacon's 
ideal when he wrote — " I do hold it, in the royal 
ordering of gardens, there ought to be gardens for 
all the months of the year ; in which, severally, 
things of beauty may be then in season." 

To attain this end the guardians of this place 
of flowers rely on the commonest material — tulips, 
hyacinth, narcissus, arabis, myosotis and wallflower 
in spring — lupins, roses, poppies, pansies and such 
like in summer. The botanist's borders are apt to 
appeal only to the elect ; where decorative efi'ect 
is the aim there is nothing to equal the old 
favourites. 

More ambitious, and more laborious to be carried 
out, is the design which these ladies have under- 
taken in converting a disused quarry into an alpine 
garden. It will be a rockwork on a Cyclopean 
scale. A vast vertical cliff of carboniferous sand- 
stone bounds it on one side, at the foot of which 
is a fine jumble of fallen boulders and shattered 
L 89 



SCOTTISH GARDENS 

shale. No material could be finer for the purpose, 
but it makes one's back ache to think of the amount 
of weeding that will be required ; for none but 
those who have put it to the test may realise, not 
only the incessant diligence which must be exercised 
to extirpate such vulgar things as pearl-weed, 
Marcantia, sow-thistles, etc., but also the vigilance 
to prevent Auhrietia and Arenaria smothering such 
delicate growths as Androsace and Dianthus. 

I have said that there are not many rare or 
out-of-the-common plants cultivated at South Ban- 
taskine ; one shrub, however, deserves notice as 
evidence of the climatic capabilities even of this 
district, which is about the coldest of any at similar 
elevation in the Scottish Lowlands. Rlmdodendron 
Thoinsoni, one of the most brilliant of a class usually 
reputed too tender to endure northern winters, has 
attained a height of eight feet, with a goodly cir- 
cumference, and looks as if it only required a liberal 
application of stimulating diet to flower profusely. 



90 



COLINTON HOUSE 



MIDLOTHIAN 




N almost every instance in Scotland 
(where such instances are far too 
frequent), of the abandonment of an 
ancient fortified dwelling for a mansion 
in the modern style, one has to deplore 
the inferiority of the new position to the old. It 
may have been defensive, rather than aesthetic, 
features in the ground that guided early architects 
in their selection of house-sites, but it puzzles one 
to understand the motive which so often prompted 
their successors in the nineteenth century to dis- 
regard both considerations. In no place that I 
have visited is the result more to be lamented tlian 
at Colinton, once the principal residence of the 
Foulis family. Perched high upon the steep and 
wooded east bank of the Water of Leith, the old 
castle of Colinton, now a roofless ruin, commanded 
views of exquisite beauty in every du-ection. The 
silvan glories of the river valley lay beneath it on 
the west ; on the east the eye might range to the 
Castle Rock of Edinburgh ; while on the south front 

91 



SCOTTISH GARDENS 

a terraced garden lies close up to the castle wall, 
providing a fascinating foreground to the majestic 
grouping of the Pentland range. A bridle path 
climbs the shaggy brae from a ford on the river 
to the castle gate, and an avenue of limes in the 
bottom rear their lofty tops, yet not so high as to 
intercept the view from the terrace. 

All this rare amenity was sacrificed when, about 
the end of the eighteenth century, the Colinton 
estates were broken up and this portion was bought 
by Sir William Forbes, an Edinburgh banker, who 
deliberately caused the old castle to be dismantled, 
and built himself a commodious, but unromantic, 
mansion a couple of hundred yards away, shutting 
himself out of sight of the wooded valley, the 
delectable terrace and garden, and even of the 
towering Pentland Hills. On the death of Sir 
William Forbes, Colinton House was purchased by 
James, third son of General Sir Ralph Abercromby. 
He was elected Speaker in 1835, and was created 
Lord Dunfermline in 1839. Dying in 1868, he left 
Colinton to his only child, the wife of Colonel J. M. 
Trotter. 

The garden remains as of yore, smiling up to 
the sightless windows of the keep, and lovingly 
tended by its present owners, Colonel and Mrs. 
Trotter of Colinton. It has long been noted for 
the magnificent holly hedges which enclose it, whereof 
Joseph Sabine, F.R.S., contributed a detailed descrip- 
tion to the Horticultural Society of London in 1827 

92 



COLINTON HOUSE 

{Transactions, vol. vii. 194). He stated that these 
hedges had been planted between 1670 and 1680 — 
" certainly not later than the latter year " ; so 
that at the present time of writing they can be 
nothing less than 228 years old. At the time of 
Sabine's visit their height varied from 25 to 28 feet, 
tapering from a basal diameter of 15 feet to 2 feet 
at the top. Their present height is from 35 to 40 
feet, the basal diameter being in some places as 
much as 21 feet, the lower branches layering them- 
selves freely and forming an impenetrable rampart. 
The garden hedges extend in all to a length of 
1120 feet, and must have been planted originally 
with about 4500 hollies. They are clipped at the 
end of March, which the gardener, Mr. John Bruce, 
considers the best season, holding that, if the 
clipping be delayed tUl July, as most authorities 
recommend, there is not time for the young growth 
to ripen before the winter frosts. 

Mr. Bruce knows what he is talking about, 
having had charge of these hedges for thirty-five 
years ; but his employer, Colonel Trotter, takes a 
difierent view, believing that June is the best 
month for pruning evergreens. 

The efiect of these lofty walls of dark foliage 
would be somewhat sombre, were the borders not 
well furnished with bright flowers. In parts of the 
garden Colonel Trotter relies much for colour on 
poppies and other annuals, which, at the time Miss 
Wilson made her study, made but a poor show, 

93 



SCOTTISH GARDENS 

owing to the dismal weather of the summer of 
1907. 

Beside the shrubbery walks outside the garden 
there are some nice plants of Berheris Wallichi, 
Spircea -fiagellifwinis and other flowering plants, 
among which is to be noted an unusually large and 
symmetrical bush of Spircea {Neillea) opulifolia. 



94 



MALLENY 



MIDLOTHIAN 




ALLENY was for long in the possession 
of a family of Scotts — scions of the 
house of Buccleuch, Laurence Scott 
being one of the principal Clerks of 
Session in the reign of James VI. and 
I. In 1882 it was sold to Lord Rosebery by 
Lieut.-Col. F. C. Scott, C.B. It is one of those 
country seats which the growth of Edinburgh has 
caused to become suburban in its environment, but 
it remains delightfully secluded, screened by woodland 
containing some magnificent sycamores. Unluckily I 
did not visit it until the late tenants, Sir Thomas 
and Lady Gibson-Carmichael, had resigned their lease 
from Lord Rosebery, to whom this place belongs, on 
Sir Thomas being appointed Governor of Victoria. 
Thus I missed seeing the garden as it should have 
been seen, for it was Lady Carmichael's care to fill 
with bright flowers the framework of quaintly clipped 
yews which are the legacy of bygone generations, 
while Sir Thomas had enriched aU parts of the 
grounds with weird creatures wrought in metal, in 

95 



SCOTTISH GARDENS 

designing and executing which he has earned such 
a high reputation. Flowers there were still, but not 
in the luxuriance of former seasons, and the metal 
work had nearly all been removed. In one respect 
Malleny is a model for other mansions, especially in 
Scotland, where modern architects have been allowed 
too often to banish the flower-garden to an exor- 
bitant distance from the dwelling-house. Here you 
step from the ivy-grown house direct among the 
borders, and all the fleeting phases of the season 
may be enjoyed from the windows. Thus it should 
ever be in any garden worthy of the name ; and 
thus it seems to have struck Lord Cockburn, who, 
waiting in 1846, mentions Malleny as one of five 
curious, old-style gardens remaining in Midlothian. 
" They are all," he said, " sadly injured now. 
Except Hutton, they were all small and of the same 
character — evergreen bushes, terraces, and carved 
stones." 



96 



COKROUR 



INVERNESS-SHIRE 




HERE is no more desolate region in all 
Scotland than that extending north- 
wards from Kinloch-Rannoch to Loch 
Laggan. Once it was a vast primaeval 
forest broken only by the bare mountain 
summits, and wherever the surface of the moor is 
broken, bones of the departed woodland are exposed 
to view — skeletons of trees lying in inextricable 
confusion as they fell in a long-forgotten past, 
embedded in the all-prevailing wet peat. Many 
theories have been propounded to explain the dis- 
appearance of the forest, and the still more obscure 
cause which prevents trees, when planted now, thriv- 
ing where millions of them once occupied the 
ground. The most probable explanation is founded 
upon a change in meteorological conditions ; a cycle 
of centuries with moderate rainfall, favourable to 
tree-growth, having been followed by a cycle of 
centuries with excessive rainfall, encouraging the 
growth of moss and sphagnum to a degree destruc- 
tive to higher forms of vegetation, thus causing 
M 97 



SCOTTISH GARDENS 

the total disappearance of forest at about 1000 feet 
above sea level. 

Now as the whole of the district referred to lies 
above the 1000 feet level, and the only vestiges of the 
primaeval woodland that remain are a few patches of 
stunted birches and rowans, this might be considered 
the least likely situation for successful horticulture. 
So far is this from being the case that, in the very 
heart of this wilderness, at the unpromising elevation 
of 1250 feet, there has been created one of the most 
interesting and eflfective flower gardens with which. 
I am acquainted. Its prosperity seems to be evidence 
in support of the theory that it is the excess of 
rainfall and consequent growth of moss, not low 
temperature, that destroyed the ancient forest and 
prevails against all attempts to restore it. Rain falls 
faster and in greater quantity than evaporation and 
surface drainage can remove ; the soil becomes water- 
logged, and moss overwhelms all except such plants 
as heaths, which are structurally adapted to endure 
extremes of drought and moisture, heat and cold. 

But, it may be argued, the rainfall on the moor 
ot Rannoch and the surrounding mountains is not 
greater than in many other districts where trees grow 
vigorously — the English lake district, for instance. 
The answer is that altitude must be taken into 
account. At high levels, cloud prevails much oftener 
and for longer periods than at lower levels. A few 
hours of sunshine removes from the earth by evapora- 
tion an enormous weight of water, which, under a 

98 



CORROUR 

cloudy sky, can only find escape by gravitation. 
Consequently, the first requisite in creating a garden 
in a waterlogged region like Corrour is special provi- 
sion of rapid drainage. Sir John Stirling Maxwell 
kept this wisely in view when he chose a site for his 
shooting lodge at the foot of Loch Ossian. The old 
lodge, now pulled down, stood 1723 feet above the 
sea, too high for the growth of the potato, although 
rhubarb, a true alpine, flourished vigorously in the 
patch of kitchen garden. The site of the new house 
is 500 feet lower, built on a terminal moraine, which, 
by damming back the streams in the strath, has 
created Loch Ossian, a beautiful sheet of water 
between three and four miles long. Even at this 
lower level, corn never ripens, though oats are sown 
to supply green fodder ; whence it may be understood 
that the creation of a flower garden here was an 
experiment of no small uncertainty. 

Advantage was taken of every natural facility in 
the ground. The moraine whereon the house stands 
consists of a vast jumble of granite boulders, ice-borne 
from the neighbouring mountains. Many of these 
boulders having crumbled into coarse sand after the 
peculiar habit of granite, the whole mass was porous, 
although thickly coated with a mantle of wet peat. 
That mantle having been got rid of, and a terrace 
formed along the south front of the house, it was 
easy to establish a thorough system of drainage, and 
to maintain it by timely removal of sphagnum. 
Below this terrace, on the knolls between it and the 

99 



SCOTTISH GARDENS 

lake, has been created an alpine garden of the most 
delightful description. 

In alpine gardens and rockeries the effort of 
make-believe is almost always distressingly obvious. 
Individual plants may be beautiful and interesting, 
but the whole effect is unsatisfactory and out of 
keeping with the environment. But it is otherwise 
at Corrour. No need to pile rocks in laborious imita- 
tion of a ravine ; they lie here naturally in profusion 
as they were thrown down ages ago by the retreating 
glacier ; and as for environment, let the broad flanks 
and towering crests of Carn Dearg, Beinn Bhi-eich 
and Beinn Eibhinn sufiice for that, with the fair 
expanse of Loch Ossian at their feet. To turn this 
into an alpine garden little more has been necessary 
than to root out the heather and wild grasses from 
certain pockets and hollows, fill them with good soil 
and plant choice bell-flowers, globe flowers, primulas, 
saxifrages, speedwells, dianthus, and a rich variety 
of other flowering herbs. It is remarkable to see 
Incarvillea Delavayi, not usually considered patient of 
excessive wet and cold, flourishing here as luxuriantly 
as anywhere, spreading into large patches and bearing 
quantities of its large, gloxinia-like blossoms. 

Along the lake margin of yellow sand, iris, spiraea, 
and other water-loving plants make a charming 
fringe ; while shelter is pi'ovided by masses of Pinus 
montana, planted on exposed ridges among the 
heather. This hardy mountaineer, of dwarf stature 
but luxuriant foliage, thrives vigorously under 

100 



COREOUR 

conditions of exposure and soil which are fatal to 
other trees. It revels in as much wind as it can 
get, and is able to digest the humic acid in peat, 
which is so unfavourable to the health of most trees. 
All this part of the ground may be termed wild 
garden, inasmuch as flowering exotics appear to be 
growing spontaneously among the native heaths and 
grasses. But similar efifect could not be obtained 
so easily at a lower altitude than Corrour, where 
the native herbage has none of the rank exuberance 
of lowland growth. It is subalpine in character, and 
is composed of many plants exceedingly ornamental 
in themselves, such as the various heaths and moor- 
land berries, the field orchises, the dainty little 
cornel {Cornus suecica) and the lovely and fragrant 
wiutergreen {Pyrola intermedia). With these are 
blended in the most natural manner lowly thickets 
of the Himalayan Andromeda (Cassiope) fastigiata, 
with terminal racemes of snow-white or flesh-tinted 
blossoms at the end of every branchlet of intense 
green. Beside the granite stairs which climb the 
steeper banks, the great Norwegian saxifrage {S. 
cotyledon) tosses its great cloud of white blossom 
with a luxuriance that I have never seen equalled 
elsewhere. The branching sprays and delicate blos- 
soms seem so fragile that one dreads the effect 
upon them of the first rough breeze ; but the 
stems are so tough and wiry that the display 
is not marred even by a long Highland gale. 
Globe-flowers, among which our native Trollius< 

101 



SCOTTISH GARDENS 

eiiropceus holds the palm, crowd the hollow moist 
places in beautiful contrast with such bell-flowers 
as Campanula rhomboidalis. 

The terrace itself, the terrace wall, and the stone 
borders flanking a granite-margined fountain, are 
more formal in character. The alpines clothing the 
wall with a many-coloured mantle seem to display 
brighter hues than they ever do when cultivated at 
lower altitudes. Some of them undoubtedly spread 
more luxuriantly than they do elsewhere. For 
instance, most gardeners find the Himalayan Cyan- 
anthus lohatus somewhat difficult to establish — some- 
what prone to disappear even when established. Here 
it may be seen in masses a yard and a half across, 
covered with shining blue flowers. The matchless 
turquoise of Myosotis rupicola gleams from chinks 
in the granite stairs in charming contrast with the 
pearl white of Oxalis enneaphylla, the vivid rose of 
Dianthus iieglectua, the shining gold of Waldsteinia 
trifoiiata and the profound blue of gentianella. This 
little forget-me-not, not often seen in private gardens, 
is the choicest of the whole family for wall decoration, 
for it is compact in habit, growing in dainty tufts, 
asking only for a narrow, deep crevice, with grit 
and loam to keep its roots cool, and free space 
overhead to allow it to enjoy the sunshine. 

Notable among scores of pretty herbs on this 
wall and terrace are wreaths of Campanula G. F. 
Wilson, a hybrid between C. pulla and C. carpatica, 
a plant of extraordinary merit owing to the 

102 



COREOUR 

abundance of its dark blue flowers ; Edriavihus 
(Wahlenhergia) pumilio, with a profusion of purple 
blossom produced from cushions of glaucous, needle- 
shaped leaves ; AcanthoUmum glttmaceum spreading 
into large prickly pillows of green, starred with 
rosy sprays ; the Pyi'enean Glohularia nana ; Oxalis 
enneaphylla, a dainty woodsorrel from the Falkland 
Islands with waxy- white flowers ; the beautiful 
Pyrenean gromwell, Lithospermum Gastoni, with 
sky-blue clusters, and the rare Gentiana Froelichi 
from Carinthia, with vase-shaped flowers of the 
same colour. 

Spring lags late in these high places ; the first 
snowdrop may not hang its head till its brethren 
on the seaboard have grown lank and green ; but 
when the frost relaxes its grip and the snow-wreaths 
sink out of sight, growth comes with a rush, and 
the profusion of blossom is such as has to be seen 
before it can be realised. 

Gardeners and amateurs owe much to Sir John 
Stirling Maxwell for having shown by example both 
at Corrour and Pollok what excellent results may be 
obtained in decorative horticulture under the most 
discouraging and apparently prohibitive conditions. 



103 



KELLIE CASTLE 



FIFE 




NDOUBTEDLY there is more difficulty 
in fixing upon representative gardens 
from the east of Scotland than from 
the west, arising, not from paucity of 
good subjects, but from their greater fre- 
quency. Not that the horticulture of the west is 
inferior to that of the east ; but, as a rule, families 
resident in the eastern counties have shown more 
constancy for old walls, and a more conservative 
sentiment in adapting old houses to modern require- 
ments, than those in the west have done. This was 
owing partly to the better building material in 
Lothian, Fife and Aberdeen, and partly to the 
superior affluence of those districts as compared with 
the western shires previous to the development of 
mineral resources. There are notable exceptions, of 
course, some of which, such as Kelburne and 
Dalzell, have been assigned a place in this collection ; 
but, on the whole, domestic architecture in the west 
has suffered far more sweeping changes than it 
has in the eastward counties. 

104 




Klil.LIK CASTLI-: 



KELLIE CASTLE 

In no place that I have visited does the fleeting 
present, represented by dainty flowers, appear more 
closely interwoven with an enduring past, embodied 
in venerable building, than at Kellie Castle. 
Standing in the midst of that fertile champaign 
known as the East Neuk o' Fife, this impressive 
fortalice — so smiling on its sunward side — so grim 
and boding on its northern — presents externally 
much the same aspect as it did before Scotland 
and England became one realm. Its very environ- 
ment speaks of a simpler, less affluent age than ours. 
Here is no far-reaching park, ambitiously planned to 
yield its lord the impression that the sun and stars 
circle in the heavens for his sole behoof Only a 
narrow belt of aged trees girdles the modest 
"policies," with cultivated farm-land coming up to 
the very garden wall, as you may see around many 
substantial chateaux in France. Nor does the vener- 
able grove contain any of those modern conifers 
whereof the indiscriminate use has done so much 
to mar many a pretty pleasure ground. One 
solitary larch seems almost to apologise for its alien 
presence among lofty beech and ash trees, massive 
sycamores, and wych elms. 

Before explaining the felicitous circumstance 
which has preserved the true character of this fine 
old house, a few notes upon its past may enable 
the visitor to appreciate the intelligent taste of its 
present occupants. Originally the jDrincipal mes- 
suage of the family of Seward or Siward, it passed 

N 105 



SCOTTISH GARDENS 

in 1360 to Sir Walter Oliphant of Gask, who 
married Elizabeth, natural daughter of Robert the 
Bruce. The fifth Lord Oliphant, succeeding to the 
great estates in 1593, so squandered his means by 
extravagant living that his cousin Patrick, succeed- 
ing about 1613, sold the property to Erskine 
Viscount Fenton, who became Earl of Kellie in 
1619. He and his descendants greatly impoverished 
themselves by their enthusiasm for the Stuart 
cause, Alexander, the sixth Earl, being among the 
very few persons of position who went ''out" in 
the '45. An old tree in the garden of Kellie is 
shown as his temporary hiding place at that time. 
He paid the penalty of three years' imprisonment, 
and finally received a fi'ee pardon. His son, the 
seventh Earl, who earned by his musical gifts the 
sobriquet of " Fiddler Tam," sold his whole estate, 
except the castle, and two or three hundred acres 
adjoining, to Sir John Anstruther. In 1875 the 
fourteenth Earl of Kellie was declared heir to the 
earldom of Mar in the creation of 1565, and the two 
earldoms are now united in the person of the 
twelfth Earl of Mar and fifteenth Earl of Kellie, who 
rightly sets great store by the beautiful old house 
which he has inherited, bereft though it be of all but a 
fragment of the broad lands which once supported it. 
By a stroke of rare good fortune, both for the 
proprietor and all others interested in ancient 
dwellings, the late Professor James Lorimer took a 
fancy to the place in 1878. Roofless, floorless, 

106 



KELLIE CASTLE 

ruinous as was the castle, he obtained a long lease 
of it and proceeded to reconstruct the fallen work, 
repair the rest, and re-create the whole gi'ounds 
and garden in the spirit of the seventeenth century. 
Admirably did he succeed, and, although he has 
passed away, his widow and his son, Mr. R. S. 
Lorimer, A.R.S.A., most faithfull}'^ and tenderly carry 
on his plan and purpose, which is explained and com- 
memorated by an inscription graven over the entrance: 

HOC ■ DOMICILIVM • CORVIS • ET • BVBONIBVS • EREPTVM 

HONESTO • INTER ■ LABORES ■ OTIO • CONSECRATVM ■ EST 

AS- JAHL 

MDCCCLXXVIll' 

" To me, as an architect," writes Mr. R. S. Lorimer, " the 
interesting point about the house is that the plan has not 
been interfered with or modernised, and the exterior of the 
house is practically untouched. So many of the fine old 
Scotch houses were ruined by Bryce and others fifty or 
sixty years ago, the old portion being entirely surrounded by 
modern work ; whereas, when it is necessary to add to an old 
Scotch house, the old portion ought to be allowed to stand 
up and tell its own story, and the new portion should be 
joined on to it by some narrow neck so that there never can 
be any question as to which is the old and which is the new. 

" One of the characteristics of Kellie is the fact that the 
walled garden enters direct out of the house, and that the 
flowers, and fruit, and vegetables are all mixed up together. 

" I always think the ideal plan is to have the park, with 
the sheep or beasts grazing in it, coming right under the 
windows at one side of the house, and the gardens attached 

'"This dwelling, having been cleared of crows and owls, has been devoted to 
honourable repose from labour." The legend was written by the late Principal 
Sir Alexander Grant. 

107 



SCOTTISH GARDENS 

to the house at another side. We could not quite manage 
this at Kellie but put as light a fence as possible between the 
lawn and the park." 

The castle garth, with its sunny grey walls, 
archway of clipped yew, trellised roses, and thick 
box edging a couple of feet high, has been kept 
much as it must have been when " Fiddler Tam " 
made it resound with the strains of his violin. The 
charm of eld, so difficult of attainment by any 
accelerating process, hallows every bush and border. 
Little is grown here except the common old favourites 
of our great-grandmothers ; some fine plants of 
Piptanthus nepaleiisis, flowering luxuriantly at the 
time of my %asit, seemed scarcely at home among 
their eighteenth century neighbours. A modern 
garden house, with stone roof and shadowy eaves, 
at the north-east corner of the garth, has been 
so deftly brought into harmony mth a distant past, 
as to cheat one into believing it to be part of the 
original design. 

And over all this tranquil scene presides the 
time-worn fortalice, with its crow-stepped gables and 
clustered tourelles, prompting the inevitable, invari- 
able wish — " Ah, could these walks but speak ! " 
" Futile ! " say you. Nay, but they do speak, and 
have much to tell to understanding hearers. 

" All pain, all passion, all regret, 

All love and longing come 
To swell the strain whose burden yet 

Imploreth ' Home, sweet home.' " 
108 



AUCHENCRUIVE 



AYRSHIRE 




O one can realise, until he tries it, the 
difficulty of making a small selection 
l/l W^^^"^ I from the many beautiful gardens to be 
I ^^y^vl found in every Scottish county. There 
^^^^^^J are famous gardens, such as those at 
Dalkeith, Drumlanrig, Preston Hall, Drummond 
Castle, Terregles, and many other places, to which 
we would fain have given a place in these pages, 
had they not been described and depicted in so 
many previous publications. Our purpose has been, 
not to present the well-known and distinguished, 
but rather to point out in how many gardens, 
humble as well as lordly, beauty is to be found by 
anybody who cares to look for it. 

Many charming homes have been built and 
many delightful pleasure grounds laid out in the 
immediate neighbourhood of 

" Auld Ayr, wham ne'er a town surpasses 
For honest men and bonny lasses," 
but there is no garden in that district to be compared 
with that of Auchencruive for natural charm of rock 

109 



SCOTTISH GARDENS 

and river, sequestered glades and shaggy cliffs. 
There are gardens elsewhere more noteworthy than 
this one for their contents — for extensive collections 
of exotics or remarkable specimens of individual 
species. It cannot be denied that the owners of 
Auchencruive, past and present, have displayed little 
ambition in these respects, and this the enthusiast 
may feel inclined to regret, for undoubtedly there 
are the means here, on a friable soil in a western 
climate, with abundant shelter from ^dolent winds, 
of cultivating the choicer kinds of trees and shrubs 
mentioned in Appendices A and B. 

Nevertheless, natural features have not been 
neglected ; breadth of effect has been well secured 
by contrast of massive woodland with liberal spaces 
of turf; brightness has been obtained by beds of 
roses and the ordinary border flowers ; and through 
this fair scene flows the river Ayr, here churning 
into foam among reefs of red sandstone, there 
sweeping in glassy reaches under the shade of 
venerable trees. 

Miss Wilson has chosen for her subject the cliff 
which falls sheer from the bluff' whereon the mansion- 
house is built, and which has been skilfully wrought 
into a hanging garden in a series of galleries rather 
than terraces. It is a notable feature, and confers 
an air of distinction upon what might otherwise be 
remembered as merely a very pretty garden. Sameness 
is not so prevalent a vice in decorative horticul- 
ture as it was five-and-twenty years ago. It is the 

110 



AUCHENCRUIVE 

exception now to meet with a lady presiding over a 
country house who feels indiiferent to the contents 
of her flower-beds. Most ladies, and many men, 
now take an active interest in cultivating a variety 
of flowering things. Disraeli had a hand in turning 
the attention of people of leisure to this source of 
enjoyment and perennial occupation. Probably no 
subject of Queen Victoria was more ignorant of 
the processes of horticulture. Had he been asked 
the definition of a herbaceous plant he would 
have found refuge in an epigram. But he had 
the saving grace of imagination which enabled him 
to perceive that beds of " Mrs. Pollock " geranium 
and " Countess of Stair " ageratum were no 
more capable than a Brussels carpet of inspiring 
afl'ection. Pereunt et non imputantur. They carry 
with them no associations — are redolent with no 
tender memories. Therefore, desiring to depict 
Corisande as devoted to her flowers, Disraeli filled 
her garden with old-world perennials — plants more 
abiding than the generations of men, yielding 
blossoms year by year to the children's children 
of those who set them in the borders. And, when 
Disraeli had stirred people's fancy with a longing 
for the old flowers that they could love, Mr. 
"William Robinson began to teach them how that 
longing might be realised, and he has lived to see 
the revolution complete. 

There is an end to sameness in gardens, but 
the risk of tameness is as great as ever. A dominant 

111 



SCOTTISH GARDENS 

feature, like the flowery cliff at Auchencruive, preserves 
a garden from the one defect as much as from the 
other. I remember the Auchencruive garden thirty 
years ago when sameness and tameness were at 
their height, and that cliff stands out in memory, 
wreathed with bright flowers, the broad river at 
its foot sparkling in the sunlight and glimmering 
in green gloom of old oaks on the further shore. 

At Auchencruive one is in the very heart of what 
railway companies and hotel managers never weary 
of proclaiming as the Land of Burns. Very charac- 
teristic of the vates sacer, though hardly creditable to 
his sense of delicacy, are the verses in which two 
successive mistresses of the house of Auchencniive 
are commemorated. The first of these was wife of 
that Richard Oswald whom Shelburne appointed in 
1782 as Minister-Plenipotentiaiy to negotiate the 
treaty with the United States. Burns never met her 
living, but in January, 1789, when riding through 
Nithsdale, he stopped for the night at Sanquhar. 

"The frost was keen," he wrote to Dr. Moore, "and the 
grim evening and howling wind were ushering in a night 
of snow and drift. My horse and I were both much fatigued 
wnth the labours of the day ; and just as my friend the bailie 
[Whigham] and I were bidding defiance to the storm over a_ 
smoking bowl, in wheels the funeral pageantry of the late Mrs 
Oswald ; and poor I am forced to brave all the terrors of the 
tempestuous night, and jade my horse — my young favourite 
horse whom I had just christened Pegasus — further on, through 
the wildest hills and moors of Ayrshire, to New Cumnock, 
the next inn ! The powers of poesy and prose sink under 

112 



AUCHENCRUIVE 

me when I would describe what I felt. Suffice it to say that, 
when a good fire at New Cumnock had so far recovered my 
frozen sinews, I sat down and wrote the enclosed ode." 

Dr. Moore had done well for his friend if he 
had suppressed the said ode, for slander grosser 
and more gratuitous was never penned than this 
lampoon upon a lady, who, during her life, had 
never given the writer cause of offence. Neverthe- 
less, his case was a hard one ; he did but express 
in stinging verse the irritation which one of us 
lesser mortals would have vented in bad language. 

The other composition was of a very different 
character, and, in its later form, celebrated the 
charms of the wife of the first lady's grandson, 
M.P. for Ayrshire. Her name was Louisa, which, 
for the sake of metre, was altered to Lucy in the 
poem. The husband is supposed to be singing 
the praises of his wife. 

" 0, wat ye wha's in yon town. 
Ye see the e'enin' sun upon ? 
The fairest dame's in yon town 
That e'enin' sun is shining on." 

Such is the refrain of eight fervent stanzas ; but 
woe's me for Robin's constancy ! The verses were 
originally addressed to Jean Armour — the " bonnie 
Jean" of many an ode. To adapt them to another 
fair one's acceptance, " maid " had to be altered to 
" dame," and " Jeannie " to " Lucy ! " Conscientious 
editors have duly chronicled in footnotes the variant 
readings. 

o 113 



BARSKIMMING 



AYRSHIRE 




T is a fancy of certain writers to give 
freak headings to their chapters, cryptic 
enough, sometimes, but connected more 
or less vaguely with the nature of the 
contents. Were that example to be 
followed in the present unimaginative work, this 
chapter might be entitled " Cheese and Chaffinches," 
to commemorate a pretty little scene enacted in that 
fairyland which mortals call Barskimming. 

The river Ayr winds through the park, having 
cut for itself a profound channel through the red 
Permian rock which overlies the carboniferous beds 
in all this part of Ayi'shire. The sides of the 
gorge are richly clothed with oak and ash, which, 
as appears from Timothy Font's survey, executed 
in 1595-1600, are survivors of the primitive Cale- 
donian forest ; but here and there the sides are 
sheer precipice, aflbrding no foothold for trees, the 
crags standing out bare, silvered with lichen or 
glowing with Venetian red and rose where the 
rock has crumbled away. In front of the mansion 

114 



BAKSKIMMING 

house, which was rebuilt after a fire some five- 
and-twenty years ago, a lofty and beautiful bridge, 
designed by Robert Adam, has been flung across 
the chasm. 

Of the four sisters who have made Barskimmiug 
their home for a number of years, each has her 
peculiar province and chosen outlet for energy. Miss 
Marianne Anderson has established and made famous 
a stud of Welsh mountain ponies, a breed whereof 
she was among the first to recognise the extra- 
ordinary beauty and quality, and which has secured 
for her many honours at Dublin and other horse 
shows. Miss Fanny Anderson's specialty is orna- 
mental ironwork, the garden gate, through which 
we shall pass presently, being an example of the 
combined strength and delicacy of her handiwork. 
She has also a remarkable power of attraction for 
wild birds. Whether this be psychical, or whether 
it be purely physical, residing in a small tin box 
stuck in her waist-belt, deponent sayeth not ; he 
can but testify to what he saw. Pausing on 
the bridge aforesaid on our way to the garden, 
the bird-compeller sounded shrill summons to her 
familiars, and forthwith there came from the dense 
foliage of an aged oak, whose topmost branches 
were several feet below the bridge, a hen chafiinch, 
to perch on the parapet within a yard or two of 
where we leant. A second hen followed, and after 
her a cock bird, not quite so confident. Then the 
magic box was opened, disclosing some tiny bits of 

115 



SCOTTISH GARDENS 

cheese. One of the birds was so tame as to take 
a piece of this delicacy from the very lips of the 
lady ; but the favourite exhibition is obtained by 
flicking a morsel of cheese over the parapet, when 
the chaffinches dart in pursuit, one or other of 
them never failing to catch it before it reaches the 
water eighty feet below. 

But our main business at Barskimming lies 
to-day in the garden, where Miss Bertha Anderson 
reigns supreme, and thither she now guides us, 
through the pretty gate mentioned above. Miss 
Bertha's collection of flowering plants has gained 
wide repute, but before examining it in detail, a few 
words must be devoted to describing the pleasaunce 
wherein they flourish, for it is quite distinct in 
character from any other depicted in this book. 
Through the heart of it the PowkaiP has cleft a 
deep canon in its haste to join the river which 
bounds the garden on the south. With dubious 
taste, Lord Glenlee, the Scottish Lord of Session 
who laid out these grounds 140 years ago, caused 
this stream to run for some distance through a 
tunnel, filling up the dark gorge and levelling the 
surface as a bowling green. The lower part of its 
course, which remains open, shows how much 
natural beauty was sacrificed in this costly opera- 
tion. However, there it is ; a fair space of level 
turf, partly shaded from the south by splendid oaks 

' Celtic names cling closely to the topography of the Lowlands. Powkail — the 
narrow stream — from the Gaelic pol cool, containing the same word as has been 
used for centuries to denote the Kyles — that is the Narrows — of Bute. 

116 



BARSKIMMING 

of the true sessile-flowered kind, and bounded on 
the other sides by sloping banks, terraced walks, 
and flower borders. The north and west sides 
of the garden are protected by old and high walls, 
once occupied by fruit-trees and a grape-house, but 
these Miss Bertha has swept into limbo, draping the 
walls instead with sheets of climbers, especially 
roses, among which may be noted the snowy 
Mme. Alfred Carrifere (well shown in Miss Wilson's 
drawing), the long streamers of the original Loudon 
rose, putative parent of the numerous progeny 
known as Ayrshire roses, and the Letton briar, a 
very uncommon variety, with large, single flowers 
of clear, full pink. 

Having got so far, the visitor will have begun to 
realise some of the features which give its dis- 
tinguished character to this little valley of flowers. 
Chief, perhaps, among these is the combination of 
a very dry surface with the perennial presence of 
swiftly running water. No Eden is perfect without 
its stream, and here gushing Powkail sounds ever in 
one's ears as it hurries to the river through a deep 
and narrow dell, planted with choice ferns and shade- 
loving plants. The Canadian Adiantum pedatum 
luxuriates here ; Primula rosea attains a stature 
impossible under ordinary conditions ; the pretty 
foam flower {Tiarella cordifolia) runs riot among the 
moist rocks, the yellow and orange forms of the 
Welsh poppy mingle in charming contrast with the 
clear blue of Campanula rhomboidalis. Rodgersias 

117 



SCOTTISH GARDENS 

spread their noble foliage, meet companions for the 
native wood bell-flower {C. latifolia) and the giant 
saxifi-age (-S'. pelkda). It is a place to make patent 
the futility and self-consciousness of so many rock 
gardens ; it is indeed inimitable by most gardeners, 
for the foot of man can never have passed through 
this gorge until Miss Bertha caused paths to be 
hewn out of the vertical rocks and flung a bridge 
here and there across the chasm. 

The license of flower and foliage which riots in 
this dell throws into high relief the perfect order 
and neatness maintained in the rest of the grounds. 
Neatness without formality. There is not a gravel 
or paved path in the whole garden ; nothing but 
shaven sward on which you walk as upon velvet 
pile — sward in green lagoons, as it were, across which 
splendid oaks fling broad shadows — sward in smooth 
alleys between banks of summer flowers which have 
succeeded the spring bulbs, now fast asleep in the 
mould — sward in bays and corridors among choice 
rhododendrons and a few, not too many, conifers. 
Here and there, in sunny nooks, stand pillars of a 
peculiar kind, supporting large pots of geraniums. 
These pillars come from neighbouring Mauchline, 
famous for its curling stones, and are the sandstone 
rollers upon which the harder curling stones have 
been ground. The sandstone wears away in grooves 
and rolls, causing the core to assume an architectural 
character, in which Miss Bertha's quick eye detected 
decorative properties. Two of these rollers, set one 

118 



BARSKIMMING 

upon another, make a pillar about live feet high, 
and, being waste products, can be had for little more 
than the cost of carnage. 

Now as to the flower borders, with their varied 
contents and their fine combination of freedom with 
discipline, one has to remember that every plant has 
to withstand the climate of a cold Ayrshire upland 
about 400 feet above the sea. This, therefore, is not 
one of those gardens whereof the owner is lured to 
disappointment by attempting the open-air culture 
of plants just outside the limits of perfect hardiness. 
Miss Bertha contents herself with things which will 
flourish anywhere in the British Isles, provided that 
they are wisely handled. The greater the surprise, 
therefore, to find a bed of Ixias in luxuriant blossom. 
The bulbs were planted at the beginning of January, 
1907, and, in virtue of a perfectly drained and light 
soil, withstood the rigours of twenty-five degrees of 
frost and a peculiarly trying spring. We do not, 
however, recommend an attempt to gi'ow these gay 
flowers in the north, except for a single season's 
display. Like the Persian ranunculus, they require 
baking in hotter sunshine than our Scottish firma- 
ment permits, to prepare them for a second year's 
display of their brilliant colours. 

The general efiect of the borders at the time of 
our visit was given by larkspurs, roses, iris and 
campanula of many kinds, the most distinct of the 
bell-flowers being the rich blue species now classed 
as G. rhomhoidalifi, though why in the world it 

119 



SCOTTISH GARDENS 

should be deprived of its former and most appro- 
priate epithet azurea is one of those mysteries 
wrought in the star chamber of Kew. Among these 
were several choice flowers not often met with, such as 
Oxalis Deppii, a woodsorrel with flowers, large for this 
genus, of vieux rose, greatly superior to the commoner 
0. Jiorihunda. Lathyrus Drummondi {rotundifolms), 
with blossoms of fine cinnabar red, rambled over 
aged espalier apple-trees in the back row ; Salvia 
tenori was conspicuous afar with its deep blue spikes, 
and Veronica pimeloides poured a little cataract of 
greyish-blue from the front row. 

The nucleus, so to speak, of this paradise of 
flowers, is a rectangular kitchen garden in the old 
style, with narrow borders along the paths, backed 
by espalier fruit trees screening ofi" the cabbages and 
onions. But so deftly has this part of the ground 
been handled, so generously have the flowering plants 
responded to liberal and discriminate treatment, that 
one does not suspect the presence of utile among such 
a wealth of dulce. There it is, however, though it 
requires close scrutiny to detect it, and I do not 
remember to have seen elsewhere this combination 
of flower and kitchen garden so skilfully carried 
out. Weeds, it may be assumed, are as aggressive 
at Barskimming as elsewhere, but the hand of 
the Mistress of the Flowers is as ready as her 
eye is quick : not a nettle nor bit of groundsel 
is to be found in all the borders over which 
she holds sway, so vigilantly does she carry out 

120 



BARSKIMMING 

the first principles of horticulture — selection and 
rejection. 

I cannot leave Barskimming without mention- 
ing one picturesque, if homely, feature in its garden. 
Every amateur and professional gardener must have 
realised the difficulty of disposing of rubbish. In 
the outskirts of nearly every pleasure-ground there 
exists a dire accumulation, more or less success- 
fully concealed, of rotting cabbage stalks, flower 
stems, decayed fruit, old pease-sticks, etc., mounting 
higher year by year, abode of rats, and source of 
evil odours. Scottish gardeners speak of this as 
" the coup " ; I know not what the southron 
synonym may be. Well, at Barskimming "the coup" 
is on a heroic scale. All the waste products, which 
will not serve for leaf-mould, are shot over a sheer 
precipice on the south side of the garden, and fall 
clear nearly 100 feet into the river Ayr, to be swept 
away by the first spate. 

And spates are neither niggardly nor infrequent 
in Western Scotland. 



121 



CAWDOR CASTLE 



NAIRNSHIRE 




ARIOUS are the elements which go to 
make a perfect garden, each of them 
appealing in its degree to different 
persons according to their temperament 
and training. Not very numerous are 
those competent to criticise the technicalities of culti- 
vation, but the pleasure is very complete which their 
knowledge enables them to derive from a visit to 
a collection so large and intelligently tended as Mr. 
William Robinson's at Gravetye Manor or Canon 
Ellacombe's well-stored grounds at Bitton Vicarage. 
Historic association or romantic tradition appeals to 
a larger number, and these will be as agreeably 
moved by gazing on the bleak formality of Diane de 
Poictiers' garden at Chenonceaux as by the enchant- 
ing groves into which they pass through Ibn-1-Ahmar's 
Gate of Pomegranates in the Alhambra. 

For such persons the ample grace of the gardens at 
Hatfield will be enhanced by their antiquity, and the 
recollection that the pleached lime-trees and venerable 
mulberries were planted for the delectation of Robert 

122 



CAWDOR CASTLE 

Cecil, first Earl of Salisbury, when he became the 
reluctant owner of that manor, having been compelled 
by King James to receive it in exchange for beloved 
Theobalds in 1607. 

Perhaps a majority of practical people agree with 
Mr. Andrew Lang's opinion that " gardens were 
devised by Providence for the pottering peace of 
virtuous eld," and are satisfied with a garden if it 
soothes their senses by a tasteful disposition of 
trees, and shrubs, and flowering herbs. The nearest 
approach to perfection is attained in a garden 
where the eye is gratified by beauty of form and 
colour, and the mind is stimulated by historic asso- 
ciation ; and such is the case at Cawdor Castle. It 
is as impossible, one would think, to visit this 
seat of the ancient Thanes and remain indifferent to 
the strange narrative which men claim to be its 
history, as it would be to derive no pleasure from 
the contrast of masses of bright blossom with the 
grim grey towers which overlook them. 

Cawdor Castle stands in the midst of that rich 
strath which stretches from the foot of Carn-nan-tri- 
tighearnan, or the Cairn of the Three Lords, to the 
sea. On the east, dark Findhorn battles his way to 
the Moray Firth through the gorges of Altyre and 
Relugas ; on the west, the little Nairn prattles and 
sparkles along its pebbly channel, parallel to the 
greater river. We are fully four hundred miles north 
of Greenwich here, yet the climate of this region, 
summer and winter, is perhaps the most delightful 

123 



SCOTTISH GARDENS 

of any part of the British Isles. No wonder that 
possession of this choice territory was fiercely con- 
tested in days when the sword was stronger than 
the pen. 

The Thanes of Cawdor claimed descent from that 
brother to whom Macbeth, Mormaer of Moray, yielded 
the thanedom when he usurped the throne of Scot- 
land in 1040 ; but it was not until 1454 that the family 
rose to be important in the person of Thane William, 
who was appointed by James II. to administer the 
broad lands of Moray, forfeited to the Crown on the 
fall of the great house of Douglas in that year. 

Thane William's castle at that time was at Inver- 
narne, now called Nairn ; but he had also a hunting 
lodge some six miles inland at Old Cawdor. The 
narrow tower of Nairn appearing inadequate for his 
new and lucrative dignity, he determined to build a 
larger stronghold. More prudent than the generality 
of Scottish lairds, he laid by the necessary cash in a 
strong box before a single stone was laid, deliberating 
the while on the choice of a suitable site. The 
problem, it may be supposed, occupied much of his 
thoughts, waking and sleeping. One night a brilliant 
suggestion came to him in a dream, which bade him 
bind the treasure on the back of an ass, turn the 
beast loose at Old Cawdor, and found his castle 
wherever it should first lie down. In the age of 
faith, nothing could be more natural than that the 
Thane should fulfil literally the instructions received 
in a dream, and this he did to the letter. 

124 



CAWDOK CASTLE 

Now the ass, being heavily laden with cash, which 
tradition reports was contained in an iron chest, did 
not wander far. It browsed its way slowly to a 
knoll below the confluence of Allt Dearg and the 
Rierach Burn, whereon grew three hawthorns, under 
one of which it lay down. The castle keep was built 
round the tree, which sceptics may handle and see 
at this day, dry and sapless it is true, but still hard 
and sound, rooted in the floor and built into the 
vaulted roof of the donjon. Beside it lies the iron 
cofifer which once held the treasure, and from time to 
time guests in the castle gather round these venerable 
relics and quaff" — " Success to the hawthorn tree," 
though it has borne neither leaves nor flowers these 
four hundred and fifty years. 

This keep is but the core of the vast pile which 
now frowns down upon the beautiful garden repre- 
sented in Miss Wilson's painting. The greater part 
of the castle as it stands was the work of Colin 
Campbell in 1639. How the Campbells came to 
Cawdor is explained in several versions of a tradi- 
tion, differing in detail, but agreeing in the main 
facts. Here, briefly, is one account of the transaction 
thoroughly in keeping with the times. 

Thane William, builder of the keep, was succeeded 
by his son William, who had five sons, all of whom 
were childless, except John, who married Isobel 
Rose of Kilravock. John died in 1498, shortly after 
the birth of his only child, Muriel, who, succeeding 
to the thanedom and its ample revenues, instantly 

125 



SCOTTISH GARDENS 

became an object of supreme interest to other 
powerful landowners. Among these was Archibald, 
second Earl of Argyll, who was particularly anxious 
to find suitable matches for his younger sons. Being 
Lord High Chancellor of Scotland and a prime 
favourite with James IV., Argyll obtained from that 
monarch the ward of Muriel's marriage. But the 
child's three uncles were not disposed to admit 
Muriel's succession, which they claimed as limited 
to heirs male. They refused, therefore, to surrender 
the babe to Argyll, who straightway adopted means 
to enforce his rights in the old manner. He sent 
his vassal Campbell of Innerliver,^ with sixty clans- 
men, to capture his ward. Concealing themselves in 
the wood of Cawdor, they waited till the nurse 
brought out baby Muriel, scarcely more than a 
year old, for an airing near the castle. The ambush 
was a success ; the child was easily taken, but not 
before the nurse, with a wholesome suspicion of 
Highland ways, had bitten oif a joint from the little 
finger of her charge, in order to her better identifi- 
cation in future possible contingencies. 

The Campbells struck out for distant Lochowe 
with their precious little prisoner; but the nurse 
ran back to rouse the castle. The uncles set forth 
hot-foot in pursuit of the kidnappers, overtook and 
attacked them with a superior force. Inverliver, 
seeing his men overpowered, shouted — "'JS fhada 

^ Innerliver or Inverliever was purchased in 1907 by the Commissioners of Woods 
and Forests in order to form a State forest. It extends to about 13,000 acres. 

126 



CAWDOR CASTLE 

glaodh o' Lochow ! 'S fJiada cohhair o cJdann dhoaine !" 
That is, " It's a far cry to Lochowe ! and succour is 
far from my lads in their danger!" Then he had 
recourse to an ingenious ruse. Having caused the 
baby to be stripped and her clothes stuffed with 
straw, he thrust the bundle under a large camp 
kettle inverted, taking care that the enemy should 
have full view of the latter part of the proceeding. 
Then he set his seven sons round the kettle, charg- 
ing them to defend it to the death, and, drawing 
off the survivors of his band, escaped with them 
and the babe into the wilds of Monad h Lia. 

The seven young men all perished at their 
appointed post ; but when the bereaved uncles raised 
the kettle — lo ! there was nothing but a bundle of 
straw and some baby's clothing. 

When Muriel was brought to Lochowe, the nurse's 
sagacity in mutilating her was justified. 

" What shall we do," asked Campbell of Auchin- 
leck, " if she dies before she is of marriageable age?" 

" She can never die," answered Inverliver, " so 
long as a red-haired lassie can be found on the 
shores of Lochowe ! " 

Muriel remained in custody of the Campbells 
till the year 1510, when, being twelve years of age, 
she was duly married to John, third son of the 
Earl of Argyll, from which union the present Earl 
Cawdor is tenth in direct male descent : and that is 
how the Campbells came to Cawdor. 

Other and later memories people the landscape 
127 



SCOTTISH GARDENS 

that rolls, ridge upon ridge, away to the bleak 
expanse of Monadh Lia. Every glen cherishes its 
tradition of the terrible spring of 1746, when, after 
the sun of the Stuarts had set for ever in blood 
and tears on the fatal moor of Culloden, Cumber- 
land's troops were dispersed in pursuit of the 
broken clans. Scores of stout fellows, many of them 
grievously wounded, were hunted down like hill- 
foxes and butchered in cold blood. Their children's 
children will still point out to you the very spots 
where the horrid work went on, so grievously was 
Lord President Forbes mistaken when he wrote to 
Walpole — " If all the rebels, with their wives, 
children, and dependants, could be rooted out of 
the earth, the shock would be astonishing, but 
time would commit it to oblivion!' 

It were well, perhaps, could that month's work 
be blotted from the records of the British army ; 
but let us not forget another deed of blood com- 
mitted in this district about the same time. Two or 
three miles west of Lord Cawdor's shooting lodge 
of Drynachan is the place of Pall-a-chrocain, whereof 
the laird MacQueen died in 1797. He was of gigantic 
stature, six foot seven inches, they say, in High- 
land brogues (which have no heels), and a mighty 
hunter before the Lord. In the winter of 1743-4 
a woman was crossing the hill between Cawdor and 
the Findhorn with her two children, when she was 
set upon by a large wolf, which carried one of 
them away. The alarm was sounded ; the laird of 

128 



CAAVDOR CASTLE 

Macintosh summoned a "tainchel" or great hunting 
to assemble at Fi-Giuthas, not far from Pall-a- 
chrocain. MacQueen, of course, was invited ; indeed, 
no such hunting could be reckoned complete without 
that individual and his famous dogs. But on the 
appointed morning the laird of Pall-a-chrocain failed 
to appear at the right time. The party waited — the 
Macintosh swore — the early morning was the only 
time when there was a chance of picking up the trail 
of the nocturnal marauder. At last, Pall-a-chrocain 
was seen striding across the heather towards them 
at a leisurely pace. Macintosh addressed him pretty 
sharply, complaining that he had kept them all waiting. 

" Ciod e a' chabhag ? (What's the hurry)," said 
Pall-a-chrocain, coolly ; whereat the impatient hunters 
gave an angiy growl and the chief waxed still more 
indignant. 

" Sin e dhuib ! (There it is then !)," said the 
deUnquent, and, throwing back his plaid, flung down 
the wolfs head at their feet. He had stolen a 
march upon his friends ; but it seems that they 
were bent on business, rather than sport, for it is 
recorded that they were all delighted, and that 
the Macintosh rewarded Pall-a-chrocain by giving 
him the land of Seanachan "for meat to his dogs." 

This appears really to have been the last wolf 
killed in all Scotland, for, although Pennant assigned 
to Sir Ewen Cameron the honour of having put an 
end to the race in 1680, the animal slain on that 
occasion was only the last in Lochaber. 

Q 129 



MANSE OF FYVIE 



ABERDEENSHIRE 




HE Ythan, beloved of trout-fishers, flows 
through a fair strath enriched with 
many memories and set with many 
an ancient fortalice. Transcending all 
others in Aberdeenshire — perhaps in all 
Scotland — for architectural interest is the magnificent 
castle of Fyvie, whereof the history has its source 
in days long before Edward I. of England made 
it his lodging in 1296, and bids fair to outlast by 
many centuries the visit of Edward VII. of Great 
Britain and Ireland (and a good deal else besides) 
in 1907. When the annals of a house extend over 
so many centuries, trifling chronological inexactitudes 
may be treated with leniency ; still, it taxes our 
credulity rather beyond its limits to be shown in the 
fifteenth century Seton tower at F}^ie the actual bed- 
room occupied by the first Edward in the thirteenth 
century ! In truth, there is no part of the building 
which can be declared confidently to have belonged 
to the original stronghold, so completely has the 
whole castle undergone reconstruction by successive 

130 











MANSE OF FVVIK. 



MANSE OF FYVIE 

owners. Nevertheless it remains almost without 
a rival as an example of the peculiar Scottish 
style. 

So sweetly the woods and fields smile under the 
fleecy clouds, so blue are the hill-crests and so 
sparkling the streams, that we cannot grudge the 
hours as the leisurely "local" wends its way from 
Aberdeen on this perfect summer day. In due time 
we alight (in literature people do not "get out" of 
trains and carriages, they "alight") on the platform of 
Fyvie station. There is a choice of ways thence to our 
destination — the legitimate one by the high road, 
but that has been robbed of much of its charm by 
the interminable park wall which Lord Leith of 
Fyvie recently caused to be built for the relief of 
the unemployed ; so we take the other, illegitimate 
perhaps, to mere wayfarers as we are, but 
Scottish landowners are never illiberal in the matter 
of trespass. Entering the " policies " of Fyvie at the 
lodge gate, a delightful woodland w^alk leads across 
the little river, under the walls of the castle and 
out along the margin of a lake till we reach the open 
country again. 

Below us on the right is the bridge of Sleugh 
where Annie of Tifty MilP parted for ever with her 
lover — a tragedy commemorated in a ballad which 
became dearer, perhaps, than any other to Aberdeen- 
shire people. It tells how pretty Agnes, daughter 

' Her baptismal name was Agnes, but she always appears as Nannie or Annie 
in the various versions of the ballad. 

131 



SCOTTISH GARDENS 

of the wealthy miller of Tifty, lost her heart to a 
handsome trumpeter in the suite of the Lord of Fy vie. 

" At Fyvie's yett there grows a flower, 
It grows baith braid and bonnie ; 
There's a daisy in the midst o' it, 
And they call it Andrew Lammie." 

No backward lover was the said daisy, for the 
maiden tells us how — 

" The first time me and my love met 
Was in the woods o' Fyvie, 
He kissed my lips five thousand times 
And aye he ca'd me bonnie." 

The miller, whose name does not appear in the 
poem, but who is known to have borne the homely one 
of Smith, took a very firm line with his daughter 
from the first. He declined even to entertain the 
idea of her wedding with a mere trumpeter. She 
should look far higher for a mate with her " tocher " 
of five thousand merks. The miller's wife and sons 
were of the same opinion, and between them they 
led poor Annie a terrible life. If the poet is to be 
credited, when argument failed, they tried violence 
and beat the girl unmercifully. They even showed 
Lord Fyvie the door when he came to plead the cause 
of the lovers. Annie remained true to her troth, 
and before Andrew's duty called him away to Edin- 
burgh he met her in a last tryst at the Bridge of 
Sleugh, and vowed he would come back and marry her 
in spite of them all. 

132 



MANSE OF FYVIE 

Now there is au old Scottish belief that lovers 
who part at a bridge will meet never more ; and so 
it proved with this fond couple. Annie died, some 
say of a broken heart, others of a broken back 
owing to her brother's brutality. 

" When Andrew hame frae Embro' cam 
Wi' muckle grief and sorrow — 
' My love is dead for me to-day, 
I'll die for her to-morrow. 

" ' Now will I speed to the green kirkyard. 
To the green kirkyard o' Fyvie ; 
With tears I'll water my love's grave, 
Till I follow Tifty's Annie.' " 

No doubt was ever cast on Andrew's fidelity ; but 
although he may have mourned over his sweetheart's 
grave, he did not stay in the kirkyard, for it is told 
of him that long after her death he was in a company 
in Edinburgh where the ballad of Tifty's Annie was 
sung, which so deeply afiected him that the buttons 
flew ofi" his doublet ! A stone in " the green kirkyard 
of Fyvie " bears the following inscription : 

HEIR • LYES ■ AGN 
ES ■ SMITH • WHO 
DEPARTIT ■ THE 
19 OF ■ JANVARl 
1673. 

while Andrew Lammie is commemorated by a stone 
figure of a trumpeter on the battlements of one of 
the castle towers. 

133 



SCOTTISH GARDENS 

But our errand to-day is not to gather up on the 
spot the threads of this sad story, nor to view the 
lordly castle, nor yet to explore the foundations of 
S. Mary's Priory, built by Fergus Earl of Buchan 
in 1179 for the Tironensian monks of S. Benedict, 
or to deplore the completeness of its demolition. There 
stands the castle, but there does not stand the 
priory, though its site is well marked by a tall Celtic 
cross, set up in 1868 on a green knoll, and far seen up 
and down the strath. The object of our mission 
lies close to " the green kirkyard of Fyvie," whither 
Miss Wilson's instinct for fair flowers directed her, 
with the result shown in Plate XIX. 

A keen instinct it is shown to be, for it is a 
melancholy but general truth that the manse garden 
is about the last place in a Scottish parish that one 
expects to find well-tended borders. In England it 
is difi'erent ; it is among the English clergy that you 
may look for some of the most accomplished amateurs, 
and, as high authorities in horticulture, it would be 
hard to beat Dean Hole for roses, Mr. Engleheart 
for daflbdils, or Canon Ellacombe for all sorts of 
flowering things. The Scottish clergy, as a class, 
are strangely indifferent to the fluctuating hopes and 
fears, joys and woes, of horticulture. There are 
notable and praiseworthy exceptions, but I speak of 
the class, with the necessary caveat about generalising. 
I scarcely think that our pastors of to-day can be 
deterred from seeking solace in an occupation so 
natural and congenial to men whose avocation keeps 

134 



MANSE OF FYVIE 

them in country homes throughout most of the 
months, or that they have any such apprehension of 
censure as induced good Dr. Nathaniel Paterson 
seventy years ago to withhold his name from the 
title-page of the first edition of his delightful Manse 
Garden. 

" The following work," he explained in the introduction, 
"though nowise contrary to clerical duty, is nevertheless not 
strictly clerical ; and as nothing can equal the obligation of the 
Christian ministry, or the awe of its responsibility, or its 
importance to man, the writer trembles at the thought of 
lessening, by any means or in any degree, either the dignity 
or the sacredness of his calling ; and as the following pages 
might more properly have been written by one bred to the 
science of which they treat, or by some leisurely owner of a 
retired villa, an inference, not the best matured, may be 
drawn to the effect — that surely the Author can be no faithful 
labourer in the Lord's Vineyard, seeing he must possess 
such a leaning to his own. He therefore expects, by hiding 
for a little, to give the arrow less nerve, because the bow- 
man can only shoot into the air, not knowing whither to 
direct his aim." 

It may be deemed presumptuous for a layman to 
criticise the recreations of his spiritual masters. 
Assuredly I do so in no carping spirit, but out of 
sheer concern for the neglect of so harmless and 
convenient a hobby. For is not every man happier 
with a hobby i And in riding this particular hobby 
gently, a country clergyman may lead the way for 
his parishioners to do the like. Hear what comfort- 

135 



SCOTTISH GARDENS 

able words the aforesaid Dr. Paterson spoke upon 
this matter. 

" When home is rendered more attractive, the market-gill 
will be forsaken for charms more enduring, as they are also more 
endearing and better for both soul and body. And ! what profu- 
sion of roses and ripe fruits, dry gravel and shining laurels, might 
be had for a thousandth part of the price given for drams . . . 
Thus external things, in themselves so trivial as the planting of 
shrubs, are great when viewed in connection with the moral 
feelings whence they proceed and the salutary effects which they 
produce. . . Wherever such fancy for laudable ornament is found 
(and it is a thing which, like fashion, spreads fast and far), the 
pastor, by suggesting this guide to simple gardening, may do a 
kindness to his flock." 

Now let me descend from the pulpit which I 
have usurped, and enter the manse garden which I 
have brought the reader so far to see. Favoured 
by fortune as few gardens of this class have been, 
it has passed successively through hands which have 
carefully tended it. Various stories are told to 
account for the amplitude of the kitchen garden 
and the high walls enclosing it. According to one 
version, these walls were the gift of his wife 
to a former incumbent, Mr. Manson, and, scarcely 
was the mortar dry in them when the Disrup- 
tion of the Kirk came to pass (in 1843), and Mr. 
Manson "went out," surrendering his benefice and 
forsaking his beloved garden — for conscience' sake. 
Another variant attributes these walls to another 
lady, wife of the Rev. John Falconer, who was 

136 



MANSE OF FYVIE 

minister from 1794 to 1828, immediate predecessor 
of the aforesaid Mr. Manson. After Mr. Manson's 
resignation, Dr. Cruikshank was translated from 
Turriff to Fyvie, and married Mr. Falconer's widow, 
thus inheriting the walls.' Dr. Milne followed Dr. 
Cruikshank in 1870, and there remains ample ocular 
evidence to the pleasure he took in his borders 
during his ministry of five and thirty years. By 
him and his family the garden was greatly enriched 
with a pretty extensive collection of shrubs and 
herbaceous and alpine plants. 

And now, in the person of the Rev. G. Wauchope 
Stewart the garden owns a new incumbent who 
is not too proud to take honest pride in fruits and 
flowers of his own raising, or to soil his hands with 
spade labour. Under his care and that of Mrs. 
Stewart there is no fear that the well-stocked garth 
will be impoverished or that the borders will be 
allowed to run wild. Much and sedulous attention 
is required, for the grounds are full of nooks and 
unexpected spaces, each with its store of choice things. 
Specially deserving of thoughtful tending is a bit 
of wall garden — " a garden of remembrance " — where 
saxifrages of man}^ sorts, stonecrops, Raraondia, Vjell- 
flowers, and other pretty flowers are well established 
— gifts from friends to the departed pastor and his 
family. Sure no fitter or more touching remembrance 
can be devised than these lowly herbs, for is not 

' Mrs. Cruikshank is buried in the apse of the parish church between her two 
husbands. 

R 137 



SCOTTISH GARDENS 

a flower the true sjmbol of the resurrection? And 
does not each one, re-appearing season after season, 
seem to breathe the prayer — " Will ye no come back 
again ? " 

Before leaving Fyvie, leave should be obtained 
to enter the parish kirk to view a truly beautiful 
west window which has been placed there to the 
memory of Lord Leith of Fyvie's only son, a sub- 
altern in the Royal Dragoons, who died in service 
in the South African war in 1900, aged only nineteen. 
This window is quite the most beautiful bit of 
modern stained glass I have seen in any country, and 
its effect is enhanced, if anything, by the surprise of 
finding such a fine work of art in a building which, 
externally, is very unpromising. 



138 



SUNDERLAND HALL 



SELKIRKSHIRE 




■ the broom and the bonny, bonny broom, 

The broom o' the Cowdenknowes ' — 
And aye sae sweet as the lassie sang 
In the bucht milking the ewes." ^ 

OW the old lilt ran in mj'- head as I 
travelled one hot morning in June 
from Galashiels to Lindean, for the 
golden broom was in full glory on 
the river banks — such glory, that if 
it were a tender exotic, requiring careful coddling 
and nicety of soil, I think we should build glass 
houses for its accommodation, as now we do for 
costly orchids. Truly, it seemed vain to seek in 
garden ground for colour more pure or fragrance 
more perfect than were so lavishly offered in field 
and hedge and hanging copse, for what can excel 
the broom in splendour or the may-blossom in 
scent ? Nor could there be devised a more charm- 
ing contrast to the glowing gold of the broom than 

* Southerners will miss the rhyme unless they follow the Scots in pronouncing 
"ewes" as "yews,'' for thus the sound of the Anglo-Saxon eouni has been pro- 
nounced in the northern dialect, as it has been in many other words. 

139 



SCOTTISH GARDENS 

the cool tint of field-geraniums, which sheeted the 
railway embankments with purple. 

But Miss Wilson having set up her easel in the 
angle of land formed by the confluence of Ettrick 
Water with the Tweed, it was my business to follow 
and supplement with plodding pen the work of her 
swift pencil. My goal was Sunderland Hall, the 
pleasant abode of Mr. Scott Plummer, a modern 
mansion set in a park of ancient trees, with a 
garden that looks much older than the house. If 
it be a merit, and I hold it to be no slight one, 
that a garden should have a distinct character of 
its own, that merit may be justly claimed for the 
garden of Sunderland Hall. It is set upon the steep 
ground rising abruptly from the north side of the 
house. Here is none of that tiresome aflectation 
which thrusts the garden proper out of sight and 
prepares a few formal borders as a set-off to the 
architect's design. The garden here is part and 
parcel of the dwelling, a suite of roofless apart- 
ments as it were, into which you can pass at any 
moment through a pretty gate of wrought iron, 
with no more trouble than going upstairs. Upstairs, 
however, you must go, for, as aforesaid, the ground 
is very steep, and is cut into a series of terraces, 
plentifully stocked with choice flowering plants in 
luxuriant health. The sense of moving through a 
suite of apartments is confirmed by the solid walls 
of clipped yew which sub-divide the slope in all 
directions, and by the carpet-like texture of the 

140 




J^'iWK. 



SUNDERLAND HALL 

fine sward under foot. There are also retaining 
walls of stone, one of the delightful features 
which remain in memory being a fine speciDien 
of the Austrian copper rose, whereof the brilliant 
garlands were charmingly set ofi" by the gi'ey masonry 
to which the plant is trained. It is a cruel mis- 
nomer that this fine briar is called " copper," for 
there is nothing metallic in the intense, yet velvety, 
glow of the petals. It is a rose unmatched in colour 
by any other, and would be far more commonly 
grown had not fashion decreed that persons of 
position (and others) must spend the sweet o' the 
year in sun-baked streets, thereby stimulating florists 
to the production of late-flowering varieties. It would 
be impossible to have clipped yew in better con- 
dition than those under charge of Mr. Harvey, the 
head gardener; and, forasmuch as experts difier as 
to the best seasons for clipping evergreens, persons 
whom it may concern may care to note that it is 
his practice to clip them in August. In the kitchen 
ground there is a feature which I have not seen 
elsewhere, namely, apple-trees closely planted and 
trained into an arch over-head, forming a long pergola. 
This must be a charming object when the trees are 
in blossom, for the boughs form their own support, 
and there is none of that too obtrusive structure 
which mars the efiect of many a pergola. Whether 
this method of training is culturally to be commended 
for the production of fruit, the present deponent 
cannot afiirm ; but perhaps that is of little account 

141 



SCOTTISH GARDENS 

on upper Tweedside, which is a cold district, ill- 
suited for the orchard industry. Yet have apple- 
trees long been grown there, for Merlin the Wizard 
apostrophises one of them in a poem preserved in 
the Black Book of Carmwthen. After his flight 
from the field of Ardderyd (Arthuret, near Carlisle), 
where the Pagan cause was finally overthrown by 
the Christian leader Rydderch Hael, a.d. 573, Merlin 
took up his abode in the Caledonian Forest, and, 
after living there for " ten years and forty," was 
buried at Druninielzier, where Powsail Burn joins 
the Tweed. The following passage occurs in his 
lament for the lost cause. 

" Sweet apple tree, growing by the river ! 
Whereof the keeper shall not eat of the fruit ; 
Before I lost my wits I used to be round its stem 
With a fair, playful maid, matchless in slender shape." ^ 

But it is a fatal thing to begin prosing about 
the memories, historic and prehistoric, of this 
Border country. Merlin is not the only wizard who 
has cast his spell upon it, for we are here upon 
the outskirts of Ettrick Forest, whereof Washington 
Irving, nursed among the pathless forests and bi'oad 
rivers of the New World, received so chill an impres- 
sion when he visited Walter Scott at Abbotsford. 

" I gazed about me," he wrote, " for a time with mute 
surprise. I beheld a mere succession of grey, waving hills, 
line beyond line, as far as my eye could reach, monotonous 
in their aspect, and so destitute of trees that one could almost 

' Vivien of the legend and of Tennyson's idyll. 

142 



SUNDERLAND HALL 

see a stout fly walking along their outline ; and the far-fiamed 
Tweed appeared a naked stream, h)etween bare hills, without 
a tree or a thicket on its banks. And yet such had been the 
magic web of poetry and romance thrown over the whole, 
that it had a greater charm for me than the richest scenery 
I had ever beheld in England." 

Yet Dorothy Wordsworth discerned in this land- 
scape a physical charm of which her father was not 
sensible. 

" In one very sweet part of the vale," she notes in her 
journal, " a gate crossed the road, which was opened by an 
old woman who lived in a cottage close to it. I said to her 
— ' You live in a very pretty place.' — ' Yes,' she replied, ' the 
water o' Tweed is a bonnie water.' The lines of the hills are 
flowing and beautiful ; the reaches of the vale long. In some 
places appear the remains of a forest, in others you will see 
as lovely a combination of forms as any traveller who goes in 
search of the picture.sque need desire, and yet perhaps without 
a single tree ; or at least, if trees are there, they should be 
very few, and he .shall not care whether they be there or not." 

The "magic web" lies as clo.se and glitters as 
fair as when these words were written nearly ninety 
years ago ; and the same hands that wove it wrought 
the earliest stages in transforming the physical land- 
scape. When Scott began planting trees at Abbots- 
ford, almost every vestige of the Caledonian fore.st 
had vanished from Tweedside, and the land wore 
that naked aspect which disappointed Washington 
Irving. But no one visiting Tweeddale and Teviot- 
dale nowadays can complain that they are treele.ss. 
Fine timber adorns the parks, broad woodlands 

143 



SCOTTISH GARDENS 

clothe the slopes, and the silvan glories of the 
river side are such as Scott dreamt of, planned, but 
lived not to realise. For he was the pioneer of 
replanting ; there, between Sunderland Hall and 
Galashiels, are the woods he reared with so much 
zeal and forethought ; it is to him that the traveller 
owes, not only the intellectual charm of the Border 
land, but much of its scenic beauty also. 

Waiting at the pretty little waterside station of 
Lindean for the train from Selkirk, one cannot but 
recall events which made that place the last scene 
in a gallant life. William, son of Sir James Douglas 
of Lothian, is known in history as the Knight of 
Liddesdale ; but the prowess he displayed, not only 
against the English in the war of independence, but 
also on French battlefields, gained him also the 
prouder title of the Flower of Chivalry. He won 
back from the English the Douglas estates on the 
Border, but in 1346 he was taken prisoner at the 
battle of Durham, along with King David II., whose 
hot-headed folly in provoking that conflict went nigh 
to sacrificing for good and all the hard-won liberty 
of his country. For six years the Flower of Chivalry 
drooped in a dungeon of the Tower of London. 
Better had he drooped to death ; for, despairing of 
freedom, he turned traitor, and bargained with 
King Edward for release, receiving broad lands in 
Annandale, which he was to hold as an open door 
for the passage of English armies. 

Meanwhile another William Douglas had returned 
144 



SUNDERLAND HALL 

to Scotland and became the champion of her cause. 
This was the son of Archibald " the Tineman," who 
was killed at Halidon Hill in 1333, when young 
William was made the ward of his godfather, the 
Knight of Liddesdale, and was sent to France to 
be educated. R,eturning in 1351 to take up his 
lordship (he afterwards became first Earl of Douglas), 
William found that the Flower of Chivalry had not 
only annexed a good deal of his ward's property, 
but had allowed his estates to be overrun by English- 
men. The Knight avoided meeting his godson ; but 
one day the young lord found him hunting in Ettrick 
forest, wliere he — the young lord — had sole right of 
the chase, inherited from his uncle the "good Sir 
James of Douglas,' Bruce's right-hand man. No man 
knoweth what ensued. Certain it is that where two 
men bearing the name of William Douglas met, only 
one, and he the younger, rode away, leaving the 
elder stark in the greenwood. The place where the 
Knight fell, only a little way from Sunderland Hall, 
is called Williamhope to this day.' 

They carried all that remained of the Flower of 
Chivalry down to Lindean Church, where the body 
rested that night ; which must serve as an excuse 
for so much irrelevancy on the part of him who 
has undertaken to write aVjout gardens. 

Loitering on the station platform, I came upon 
matter germane to horticulture, for I found the 

'The su£Bx "hope," no comiuoii Id this district, is the Norse equivalent of 
the Gaelic "glen.'' 

S 145 



SCOTTISH GARDENS 

stationinaster, another Mr. Harvey, to be a keen and 
skilful amateur. In his garden flourish many plants 
quite out of the common run, such as Iiicarvillea 
delavayi, Pnmula denticulata (masses of it), some very 
choice larkspurs, notably a pale blue one called " life- 
guardsman," for which Mr. Harvey observed with a 
sigh that he had paid far more money than he 
ought. How many of us might make similar con- 
fession, had we the candour ! 



146 



BALCASKIE 



FIFE 



1 


S«0-^ 



HE glory of the garden at Balcaskie, 
like that at the neighbouring Balcarres, 
consists in its huge terraces, which 
command the same enchanting prospect 
of wood and water, field and firth, and 
the once bitterly hostile principality of Laudonia or 
Lothian. But the terrace work at Balcaskie has 
the double advantage over that at Balcarres of 
having been planned by a great master of archi- 
tecture in the Jacobean style of his own day, and 
of having been softened by the lapse of more than 
two centuries. What Sir Robert Sibbald described 
in 1710 as "a very pretty new house, with all 
modish conveniences of terraces, park, and plainting 
[sic]," has now become a very pretty old house, and 
the terraces, once so painfully spick and span, have 
mellowed into tender greys and browns, with stains of 
lichen and velvet cushions of moss, mouldering here 
and there into hospitable chinks and crannies, where 
thoughtful hands have established thriving colonies 
of saxifrage, Erinus and other wall-loving herbs. 

147 



SCOTTISH GARDENS 

Similarly, the house, which in the fifteenth 
century must have been but a pele tower of the 
ordinary type, owned by the family of Strang 
(whence was descended Sir Robert Strange, who 
engraved bank-notes for Prince Charlie), passing by 
marriage to a grandson of Moncrieflf of that ilk, was 
sold in the seventeenth century to Sir William 
Bruce, architect of Charles II.'s Palace of Holyrood- 
house, who transformed the fortalice of Balcaskie 
into a fair Jacobean manor house. His handiwork 
is easily recognised in the characteristic flanking 
towers and pavilions, the details of the mouldings, 
and especially in the wonderfully rich plaster-work 
of the ceilings, which rival the masterpieces of that 
kind of decoration in Holyrood. It was an age 
when the classical renaissance, having spent its 
force on the Continent, still flowed strongly in the 
northern realm ; in token whereof are ranged the 
busts of Roman emperors along the principal 
terrace, each on the top of a mighty buttress of 
the vertical wall. Nymphs, agreeably discoloured, 
fauns picturesquely chipped, haunt the surrounding 
groves, posed on pedestals beside the woodland 
paths ; nor shall you look in vain for le petit dieu, 
drnit les yeux sont cache's, inais les f esses a decouvert. 

Evidence of a genial climate abounds in the 
vegetation of these grounds. An enormous Wistaria 
trails its serpentine length along the south front of 
the house, where is also to be seen on this May 
morning a pretty picture, formed by a white fautail 

148 



BALCASKIE 

dove nesting in a myrtle trained to a height of 
twenty feet on the wall. On the lower terrace is 
an immense Cornus {Benthamia) capitata occupying 
the whole space between two buttresses. It flowers 
abundantly, as a rule, which, as Mr. George 
Cavendish would say, "is a rare thing and seldom 
to be seen " — in the north country, at least ; but it 
appears to have reached the limit of old age, signs 
of which are apparent in its weakly growth and 
sparse foliage. Cordyline {Draccena) australis appears 
perfectly hardy here, promising, when a little older, 
to present a feature peculiarly in harmony with the 
stately surroundings. Phygelius capensis, usually 
grown as a not very effective herbaceous perennial, 
has reached a height of twenty feet on a wall — an 
example well worth following in other gardens. The 
western staircase of the upper terrace is garlanded 
with the far-reaching sprays of that most generous 
of all clematis, C. montunu, which pours cataracts of 
ivory flowers over the old stonework and makes the 
air redolent of incense like May-blossom. 

Among the humbler herbs, nothing is so remark- 
able as the abundance and luxuriance of the great 
Christmas rose {Hellehorus niger var. maximus or 
altifolius). This is mainly due to the special 
treatment accorded to it by Mr. Maule, the head 
gardener, who obtained a root of this, the finest of 
all the hellebores, many years ago from the late 
Miss Hope of Wardie Lodge. I likewise received 
a root at about the same time from the same source ; 

149 



SCOTTISH GARDENS 

but it may serve to demonstrate the merit of sagacious 
treatment if I confess that, whereas my whole stock 
at the present time could be comfortably lodged in 
a single wheel-barrow, Mr. Maule can show you 
toTis of healthy plants growing vigorously as a crop 
in the kitchen garden, besides having disposed of 
great quantities of roots during a long succession 
of years. He makes no secret of his treatment, 
which, put briefly, consists in deep preparation of 
rather stiff soil and abundance of well-decayed leaf 
mould (peat he does not recommend). When it is 
desired to propagate the stock, he takes up the roots 
towards the end of March, cuts off all long ends, 
which, if left untrimmed, cause the crowns to rot, and 
dibbles the slices in lines. Many persons who have 
been driven to despair in attempting to increase 
this and other varieties of Christmas rose, may find 
a way to success through following these simple 
instructions. 

Balcaskie presents a rare and charming example 
of the union of architecture and horticulture, so 
seldom effectively carried out by modern designers. 



150 



BALCARRES 



FIFE 




HE annals of the house of Lindsay 
contain inexhaustible material for the 
weaver of magazine literature ; yet 
when Robert Chambers, some seventy 
years ago, wrote for his Edinburgh 
Journal a paper entitled "A Pilgrimage to Bal- 
carres," he had but little to tell about the great 
historic family to which that tine estate belongs. 
For him BalcaiTes owed its chief attraction to 
association with the memory of a very charming 
and accomplished woman, Lady Anne Lindsay,^ a 
memory whereof, it must be admitted, the modern 
architect and landscape gardener between them 
have succeeded in obliterating most of the physical 
landmarks. The old castle has been so completely 
masked by recent additions, as to divest it, exter- 
nally at least, of all venerable suggestion ; while the 
grassy slopes where gentle Anne Lindsay tended 

' Daughter of James, fifth Earl of Balcarres, and thirtieth Lord Lindsay of 
Crawford. Lady Anne married Andrew Barnard and died in 1825. Her eldest 
brother, great-grandfather of the present Earl of Crawford and Balcarres, 
succeeded as twenty-third Earl of Crawford in addition to the other titles. 

151 



SCOTTISH GARDENS 

her flowers have been buried under tons of terraces, 
stone-built, and scaled by exorbitant stairways, 
severing us for ever from the footprints of bygone 
generations. 

A garden has been created in the grandiose 
style of the early Victorian era — the age when 
Wyatt and Paxton designed parks and palaces, and 
Disraeli and Bulwer-Lytton peopled them with 
appropriate characters. The centuries will touch 
and retouch these terraces into charm ; as yet, the 
elaborate stone-work has weathered too few winters 
— gathered too little moss — to gratify the eye ; while 
shadeless gravel walks, wide enough to admit a 
battalion of grenadiers in column of half-companies, 
make one sigh for 

Les sentiers ombreux 
On sVgarent les amoureux. 
A little group of blue hyacinths have had the 
temerity to esta.blish themselves at the foot of one 
of the great terrace stairs — pretty wildings, seeming 
to dread detection and expulsion, yet giving one the 
same agreeable thrill that is conveyed by a nod 
of recognition in a crowded assembly of strangers. 

Where the masonry ceases, clipped yew hedges 
begin — hundreds of yards of them, with far-spread, 
intricate designs in clipped box. Altogether the 
leafage submitted to the shears in each season 
must be measured in acres. One is thankful that 
a noble arbutus near the range of vine-houses, has 
escaped the tonsure. It is about 22 feet in height 

152 




BAI.CARRKS. 



BALCARRES 

and measures 125 feet round the circumference of 
its branches. An inspiring point of brilliancy 
was furnished by the finest clump of Adonis vernalis 
I ever saw, whereon were blazing between thirty 
and forty satellites to the glorious May sun, testify- 
ing to what soil and climate in the East Neuk are 
capable of producing for spring display, were they 
but given a fair chance. According to present 
arrangements, all effort is focussed upon autumnal 
splendour, when, as shown in Miss Wilson's study, 
there is no lack of colour on walls and in parterres. 
My visit to Balcarres was ill-timed for garden 
effect ; outside there was ample beauty to com- 
pensate for flowerless borders, for it would be hard 
to find a more glorious bit of park scenery. Wych 
elm and sycamore, trees which must turn the century 
before attaining majesty, abound here of great size ; 
there is also much fine ash timber, and some well- 
grown modern conifers, not scattered as specimens, 
but crowded as they should be in close forest. The 
Californian Pinus monticola, which is but a glorified 
form of the Weymouth pine, luxuriates here, and 
shows as yet no liability to the disease which has 
proved so fatal to this fine tree at Murthly. Domin- 
ating the whole demesne is Balcarres Craig, a lofty 
precipitous rock, from the summit of which a soul- 
stirring prospect spreads around. Beyond the rich 
woods and fertile plain lies the blue Firth of Forth, 
bearing on its bosom the massive Bass Rock. The 
smooth outline of the Lammermuir forms the southern 
T 153 



SCOTTISH GARDENS 

horizon, within which Auld Reekie rears lier dusky 
canopy. 

A word about Lady Anne Lindsay, whose best 
years had sped before she changed her name in 
marrying Mr. Barnard. "Her hand," says her nephew. 
Colonel Lindsay, " was sought in marriage by several 
of the first men of the land, and her friendship and 
confidence by the most distinguished women ; but 
indecision was her failing ; liesitation and doubt 
upset her judgment ; her heart had never been 
captured, and she remained single till late in life, 
when she married an accomplished, but not wealthy, 
gentleman, younger than herself, whom she accom- 
panied to the Cape of Good Hope when appointed 
Colonial Secretary under Lord Macartney." 

Upon KScottish hearts tliis lady has founded an 
undying claim as the author of Auld Robin Gray, 
whereof Sir Walter Scott wrote as " that real pastoral 
which is worth all the dialogues which Corydon and 
Phyllis have had together, from the days of Theo- 
critus downwards." The real authorship of this ballad, 
which from its first appearance in 1771 captured and 
retained the fancy of people of all ranks and many 
nationalities, was disputed for many years as hotly 
as that of WaverUy. Strange to say it was the 
author of Waverley himself who first revealed the 
author of Auld Robin Gray, by comparing the lot 
of Minna in The Pirate to that of Jeanie Gray, " the 
village heroine in Lady Anne Lindsay's beautiful 
ballad." 

154 



BALCARRE8 

Nae langer she wept ; her tears were a' spent ; 

Despair it was come, and she thought it content ; 

She thought it content, but her cheek it grew pale, 

And she drooped like a snowdrop broke down by the hail. 

For more than fifty years the secret had been kept, 
and when at last it was thus laid bare in 1823, 
Lady Anne disdained to disown the ofi"spring of her 
Muse. Less than two years before her death, she 
wrote a full confession to Sir Walter, explaining 
how she had composed the verses to suit an old 
Scottish air of which she was "passionately fond," 
and had borrowed from the old herdsman of Bal- 
carres the name of Robin Gray. Her letter, and 
Sir Walter's reply (both of which well repay perusal) 
are too long to print here. They are given in full 
in Lord Lindsay's delightful work, The Lives of the 
Lindsays (vol. ii. pp. 391-399). 

" I have sometimes wondered," wrote Sir Walter in a later 
letter, " how many of our best songs have been written by 
Scotchwomen of rank and condition. The Hon. Mrs. Murray 
(Miss Baillie Jerviswood born) wrote the very pretty Scots song 

' An't were not my heart's light I wad die,' — 
Miss Elliot of Minto, the verses of the Flowers o the Forest 
which begin 

' I've heard a lilting,' etc. — 

Mrs. Cockburn composed other verses to the same tune, 

' I have seen the smiling of fortune's beguiling,' etc. — 
Lady Wardlaw wrote the glorious old ballad of Hardyknute. 
Place Auld Robin at the head of this list, and I question if 
we masculine wretches can claim five or six songs equal in 
elegance and pathos out of the long list of Scottish minstrelsy." 

155 



CARNOCK 



STIRLINGSHIRE 




would be difficult, if not impossible, 
to find a more characteristic example 
of Scottish domestic architecture of 
the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries 
than that presented in the old house 
of Carnock. Originally built in 1548 by Sir Robert 
Drummond, whose arms and initials, with those of 
his wife, Margaret Elphinstone of Dunmore, still 
remain over the principal entrance, it was added 
to in 1634 when the property was acquired by Sir 
Thomas Nicolson, and remains unchanged in its 
main features, though outbuildings and offices have 
been erected to adapt the dwelling to the require- 
ments of a modern household. 

" What a distance," observed Messrs. M'Gibbon and Ross, 
" has been travelled over in the three centuries which have 
elapsed from the time when Scottish nobles were content to 
live in towers containing three apartments only — a ground 
floor for cattle, a first floor for a hall in which the retainers 
lived and slept, and a top storey for the lord and his family ! 
The introduction of a kitchen was at first hailed as an im- 

156 



CARNOCK 

portant innovation and improvement, all provisions having 
been previously cooked in the hall or in the open air. But 
in the seventeenth century people have become so refined that 
the kitchen, with what was formerly considered its sweet per- 
fumery, must be banished out of doors. The domestics are 
now quite separated from the hall, while the proprietor and 
his family, no longer huddled up in one room, enjoy the 
delights of the modern dining-room and drawing-room, private 
sitting-rooms and bedrooms, all provided with separate doors." ^ 

Those who sigh for the good old times and repine 
because their lot was not cast "in days of old when 
knights were bold," may incline to think that the 
domestic discomfort of a sixteenth century Scottish 
mansion is exaggerated in the passage above-quoted. 
They may agree that the knight and his family 
dined at the same table with the servants ; what 
could be more picturesque and in keeping with 
feudal custom ? But surely the lady had her bower, 
where she worked embroidery with her maidens, 
while a pretty page or sadly attired clerk read 
aloud some romaunt of chivalry — say the stirring 
adventures of Ferambras and Oliver or the story 
of Sir Eglamour of Artois. She would also have 
her parterres, spending much of her time in tending 
her favourite flowers. Alas ! if you would learn the 
naked truth from an eye-witness, hear how Fynes 
Moryson described his entertainment in a Scottish 
country house of the seventeenth century. 

" My self was at a Knight's house, who had many servants 
to attend him, that brought in his meate with their heads 

' Castellated and Domestic Architecture of Scotland, ii. 496. 

157 



SCOTTISH GAEDENS 

covered with blew caps, the Table being more then halfe 
furnished with great platters of porredge, each having a little 
peece of sodden meate ; And when the Table was served, the 
servants did sit downe with us, but the upper messe in steede 
of porredge, had a Pullet with some prunes in the broth. 
And I observed no Art of Cookery, or furniture of Houshold 
stuffe, but rather rude neglect of both, though my selfe and 
my companion, sent from the Governour of Barwicke about 
bordering affaires, were entertained after their best manner. 
. . . Their bedsteads were like Cubbards in the wall, with 
doores to be opened and shut at pleasure, so as we climbed 
up to our beds. They use but one sheete, open at the sides 
and top, but close at the feete, and so doubled." * 

It may well be imagined that, luxury being so 
scant within doors, little care was bestowed in furnish- 
ing the garden with anything except kitchen stuff; 
but when I was last at Carnock ample amends had 
been made in that respect by the lady of the castle, 
who is an enthusiastic gardener. The property 
passed to the Shaw Stewarts by marriage in the 
eighteenth century ; the present Sir Hugh and Lady 
Alice lived at Carnock till he succeeded his father 
in 1903, when they moved to Ardgowan and let 
the old house. I know not what may be the 
appearance of that garden now, but half-a-dozen 
years ago it was a joy to behold. Every border 
overflowed with blossom ; alpine Erimis, saxifrages 
and other clinging herbs clustered in crevices of 
the old walls and in the chinks of the broad stone 

^ Itinerart/, iv. 18.3 [ed. 1908]. Moryaon's visit to Scotland took place between 
1605 and 1617. 

158 



CARNOCK 

steps on the terrace front. There was abundance 
and luxuriance of Christmas roses such as one may 
seldom enjoy ; for the purpose of this garden was 
not to produce a culminating blaze at the end 
of the London season, such as was deemed the 
acme of mid- Victorian horticulture, but to link 
season with season and month \vdth month by a 
succession of blossom. No flower is more important 
to this scheme than the varieties of Hellehorus niger. 
The torch lilies have not quenched their flames nor 
the late asters their stars befoi'e the variety called 
fnaximus or altifolius unfurls its great blooms, tinted 
like apple-blossom, to be followed about Christmas- 
tide by major, Madame Fourcade, anguatifolius and 
others, which choose the darkest, dreariest time of 
the whole year for their display, and keep things 
going till snowdrops, aconites and crocus strike the 
first chord in the overture of another year. 

Simple as the requirements of Christmas roses, it 
is a fact that failures are more frequent than suc- 
cess in its cultivation. Many an amateur, delighted 
with the rare sight of a mass of ivory blooms, rose- 
tinted on the backs, resolves to have the like in 
his own garden, so that Christmas roses ought to 
be as commonly seen in good condition as double 
daisies or daffodils. But they are not : a luxuriant 
bank of Hellehoi-un niger is one of the rarest sights 
in horticulture. I have been gardening for forty 
years and more, yet have never yet succeeded to 
my liking with these charming flowers. Coming, 

159 



SCOTTISH GARDENS 

coming, coming — but never yet come. Yet we are 
assured that all they want is deep loam, partial 
shade antl to be let alone. One precaution must 
not be neglected in gardens where pheasants come — 
namely, to surround the bed with wire-netting before 
they come into dower, else will these greedy birds 
nip oflF every bud.' 

' I loave this as it was written after my last visit to Canux'k, because I feel 
siii-e that my experience has its parallel in that of many other amateurs. But 
in the paper on lUlcaskie (p. 149) I have described liow Mr. Maule, the gardener 
there, instructed me in the right management and propagation of hellebore. 



160 



KELBURNE CASTLE 



AYRSHIRE 




N all the west no fairer prospect can Vje 
had than is commanded by one stand- 
ing aVjove the pretty little watering 
place of Fairlie on the Firth of Clyde. 
I have studied it at all seasons and 
in all njoods of weather : beshrew me if I can tell 
which becomes it best — a clear winter day, when 
the fantastic fairyland of Arran gleams snow-clad 
bej'ond the blue-waters in almost unreal splendour 
— a summer morning, when the sea lies pearly calm 
and the eastern rays reveal every glen and corrie, 
every shattered peak and shadowed cliff in the brother- 
hood of Goat Fell, — or again in September, when that 
outline whereof the eye never wearies is cast in purple, 
clear-cut silhouette against the saffron west, while 
the dusky isles of Cumbrae and Bute fill in the quiet 
middle distance. In all its aspects it is a perfect 
landscape, and although the lord who built his tower 
in the .sixteenth century on the brink of Kelburne 
Glen, may have had in view strategic rather than 
aesthetic considerations, it happened here, as it has 
u 161 



SCOTTISH GARDENS 

happened in many another instance, that both pur- 
poses were best secured on the same site. 

The central tower of Kelburne Castle is dated 
1581. It may have been built — probably was so — 
on the site of an earlier keep — but it was not many 
years old when Timothy Pont, to whom we owe such 
an intimate knowledge of Scottish topography before 
the union of the Crowns, described it in the following 
words. 

" Kelburne Castell, a goodly building veill planted, liauiug 
werey beutiful orchards and gardens and in one of them a 
spatious Rome adorned with a chrystalin fontane cutte all out 
of the living roeke. It belongs heretably to Johne Boll [Boyle] 
Laird thereof." 

The gardens remain, enriched with the dignity 
that only centuries can confer; but the "spatious 
Rome [? room] " — where is it ? Miss Wilson's draw- 
ing shows a circular stone basin, wherein stands, 
not a fountain, but a wonderful sundial, wrought, 
apparently, by the same hand as one dated 1707 
which stands near the house. The surmise of the 
present " Boll " — to wit, David, seventh Earl of 
Glasgow — is that when David, the first Earl, was 
adding to the house and had the dated sundial 
erected there, he was so well pleased with it that 
he had a second one made and substituted it for 
the " chrystalin fontane." Be that as it may, one 
has no reason to complain of the result, so admirably 
does this old dial, stained and mellowed by the time 
which it was set there to measure, harmonise with 

162 




KKLHUKNK CASTLK 



KELBURNE CASTLE 

the old-world borders, the paths of smooth sward 
and the ancient yews which seem to set time at 
defiance. Nobody now notes the shadow of the 
gnomon, for every man carries a time-keeper in his 
pocket, and ladies, who have no pockets, bind 
untrustworthy watches on their wrists or pin them 
on their bosoms; but we are none of us the worse 
of the warning conveyed by this grey column in a 
pleasure ground, which seems to echo the old Scots 
saw — 

" ^ak' tent o' time crc time be tmt " ^ 

A charming example is Kelburne of Scots building 
of the sixteenth century, the original tower of " Johne 
Boll" standing clear, unimpaired, and unmutilated 
by the first Earl's addition. On the south-west front 
of it is the old herb garth enclosed in high walls, 
now converted into a pleasaunce, with flower beds and 
shrubberies lying fair to the sun, with the broad 
waters of the firth shimmering beyond. Shady alleys 
run round the enclosure, not laid with crunchy gravel 
but with greensward of seductive textui'e, bordered 
with shrubs, among which are just so many of the 
choicer kinds to cause one to wish for more. Rhodo- 
dendron Thomsoni and campanulatum are each over 
12 feet high; the common myrtle forms a great bush 
without the protection of a wall; samples these of 
what a rare collection might be ranged here if some 
of the common stufi" were cleared away. In one of 
the gardens in the town of Fairlie I noticed Cwdyline 

'Take heed of time ere it be beyond recall. 

163 



SCOTTISH GARDENS 

australis twenty feet high; what then might not be 
made of this fine enclosure with its kindly sheltering 
walls if the space occupied by aucuba and clipped 
Portugal laurel were devoted to some .^of the host of 
lovely things that delight in a western climate — such 
as Carpenteria, Desfontainea, Eucryphia and Himalayan 
rhododendrons ? Also one grudges the wall space 
covered with masses of ivy, for the masonry might 
be draped with many forms of beauty, too tender 
to stand alone. 

A curious enclosure, some thirty feet square, with 
high walls, stands at one corner of this pleasaunce. 
It is roofless now, but appears to have been once a 
pavilion or large summer house. The entrance is 
through a pretty wicket of wrought iron, and the 
interior is occupied by Lady Glasgow's rock garden, a 
delightful nook for the cultivation of choice flowers 
and ferns. The more modern kitchen garden has 
broad borders backed with rose-covered pergolas and 
filled with a general herbaceous collection, well- 
ordered and in excellent condition. Conspicuous in 
early July were two varieties of dittany {Dictainmis 
fraodnella) of a brighter rose tint than I have seen 
elsewhere, a great improvement on the ordinary type, 
which is not very satisfactory in colour. A bright 
myosotis was very pleasing. I took it at first for 
the hybrid of azorica named " Imperatrice Elizabeth," 
but the gardener informed me it was called " Queen 
Victoria." 

Before going up the glen one pauses to admire a 
164 



KELBURNE CASTLE 

splendid specimen of Pinus insignu, of unusually erect 
and graceful habit. Judged by the eye, it must be 
between 90 and 100 feet high, and the tape gave its 
girth as 15 feet at 4 feet above the ground. Among 
all the pines there is none to be so highly prized as 
this for its dense, rich green foliage, distinguishing it 
in winter from every other evergreen. 

The glen is one of the chief attractions of the place, 
though here again one longs to substitute tree ferns 
and rare rhododendrons for some of the tangle of 
it. ponticum, and native undergrowth. The burn has 
tunnelled its way through the soft red sandstone close 
to the house ; a natural cascade fills the air with 
ceaseless sound — a gentle tinkle in summer heats, a 
thunderous rush in autumn spates. Paths line the 
cliflfe on either side the stream : one of them leads to 
a grove of lofty silver firs, amid which is set a tablet 
to the memory of John, Earl of Glasgow (d. 1755), to 
the narrative of whose prowess some ambiguity is 
imparted by uncertainty of punctuation. Thus — 

" At the Battle of Fontenoy Early in Life, 
he lost his Hand and his Health His 
Manly Spirit, not to be subdued, at Lafield 
he received Two Wounds in one Attack." 

Lord Glasgow observes a commendable practice in 
displaying his own arms from the flagstaft' on the 
tower, and nobly does the scarlet eagle, double-headed 
on a yellow field, flaunt in the breeze, in high relief 
against a dark background of hanging woods. It 
would add greatly to the interest of a countryside 

165 



SCOTTISH GARDENS 

were other landowners to follow his example, each 
hoisting the heraldic bearings to which he is entitled ; 
for deeply as we revere the flag which is famed (with 
scant historical accuracy) for having "braved a thou- 
sand years the battle and the breeze," it loses some 
of its significance when it is flown from any public 
house or tea-garden. 



166 



CULZEAN 



AYRSHIRE 




HREE hundred years ago, probably the 
last place in the realm that any student 
of horticulture would choose for his 
tranquil vocation would be that lofty 
bluff on the Firth of Clyde whereon 
stands Culzean Castle/ for this was of old the 
stronghold of a branch of the Kennedys — the most 
powerful and turbulent clan in south-western Scot- 
land after the fall of the Black Douglas. 

" From Wigtown to the toun of Ayr, 
Portpatrick to the Cruives o' Cree, 
Nae man need think for to bide there 
Unless he ride wi' Kennedy." 

Culzean remains to this day the principal residence 
of the Marquess of Ailsa, head of the clan ; and, 
forasmuch as the zest of tranquillity and order is 
greatly enhanced by contrast with the insecurity 
of an elder time, it may be permitted to admit 
the reader to a glimpse of the state of society when 
the Kennedys were a formidable power in the land, 

' It is pronounced CulIJiue. 

167 



SCOTTISH GARDENS 

by quoting from an anonymous chronicle of the 
family composed towards the end of the sixteenth 
century.' It relates how Gilbert Kennedy, fourth 
Earl of Cassilis, acquired the lands of the Abbey 
of Crosraguel. 

" This last Gilbertt was ane particuler manne and ane 
werry greidy manne, and cairitt nocht how he gatt land, sa 
that he culd cum be [come by] the samin. . . . He conquessit 
the abbacy be this forme. Thair was ane fader-broder 
[uncle] of his callit Abbot Quinteyne, ane gud manne and 
ane that feiritt God, efter the maner of religione. At the 
alteratioune of the religioun^ my lord deltt with the abbott 
and gut the few [obtained the freehold] of the said abbacy 
sett to him ; bot the samin wes querrellit [repudiated] be the 
nixt intrant abbot. . . And then ane abott, Allane Stewart, 
gatt the abbacy ; and this abott had mareyitt ane sister of 
the Lady Barganyis, and foUowitt his opinione in all his 
adois [doings]. My Lord of Caissillis, perseiffing the samin, 
desyrit the Laird of Bargany ^ to mowe [move] the abbott to 
conferme his rycht, sett be the Abott Quinteyne of befoir. 
Bot the Laird culd nocht gett the abott mowitt [moved] to 
cum to him, that he mycht deill with him. . . Quhairupone 
the laird persuadit the abott and sent him to Mayboll to 
my lord. Att quhais [whose] cuming, my lord delt with 
him to ratifie his rycht ; bot could nocht gett him mowitt 
thairto. Quhairupon he tuik purpoise to conwoy him to 
Dounour [Dunure], and thair to mowe him to do the samin 
be violens. And quhane [when] he fand [found] him obstinatt, 

' The Historie of the Kennedyis : supposed to have been compiled by John Mure 
of Auchendrane while awaiting his decapitation, to which, with his son, he 
was condemned for the murder of Sir Thomas Kennedy of Culzean in 1597, and 
for several other horrible crimes. 

- The Reformation. ' Kennedy of Bargany was a near kinsman of Earl Gilbert's. 

168 



CULZEAN 

at last tuik him and band him to aue furme [form], and sett 
his bair legis to ane gritt fyr, and extreymly brunt him, 
that he was ewer thairefter onabill of his leggis." 

Such is the chronicler's succinct account of the 
roasting of the Abbot of Crosraguel ; to realise the 
full extent of the Earl's heartlessness one should 
peruse this unhappy cleric's petition to the Privy 
Council for redress. At the first roasting, on 1st 
September, 1570, the Abbot consented to renounce 
his lands, but on the 7th, being asked to sign a 
document giving eflfect to the renunciation, he 
vowed he would rather die ; whereupon his tormentor 
ordered the fire to be re-lighted, and his wretched 
victim to be trussed for a second ordeal. 

"Then," declared the abbot, "being in so grit paine as I 
truste never man was in. . . I cried, ' Fye vpon you ! will ye 
ding whingaris [thrust swords] in me and put me out of this 
world ? or elis put a barell of poulder vnder me, rather nor 
to be demaned [treated] in this vnmercifuU raaner ? ' The 
said erle, hearing me cry, bade his servant Alexander 
Ritchart put ane serviat [napkin] in my throat, which he 
obeyed. . . wha then, seing that I was in danger of my life, 
my flesch consumed and brunt to the bones, and that I wald 
not condescend to thair purpose, I was releivit of that paine ; 
whairthrow I uill never be able nor weill in my lifetime." 

The brave abbot was rescued from duresse by 
another Kennedy, laird of Bargany, and carried off 
to Ayr, " brunt as he was." Cassilis got oflf pretty 
cheap. Being too powerful a chief to offend with 
safety, he was bound over to keep the peace 

X 169 



SCOTTISH GARDENS 

towards the abbot under £2000 Scots, equal to 
£177 13s. 4d. sterling. 

This gentle episode was but one in a long series 
of ghastly outrages — arson, murder, mutilation, 
and the like — j)erpetrated by rival septs of the 
Kennedys upon each other and upon their neigh- 
bours. In the year preceding the union of the 
Crowns John, fifth Earl of Cassilis, Lord Treasurer 
of Scotland, set his hand to the following document, 
which is preserved in the charter chest at Barn- 
barroch, and is remarkable even according to the 
practice of those violent times as being uttered by 
a Minister of the Crown. 

"We, Johnne erle of Cassillis, lord Kennedy, &c., bindis 
and oblissis ws thut, howsovnne [so soon as] our broder Hew 
Kennedy of Brounstoue, with his complices, taikis the laird 
of Auchindraneis lyf that we sail maik guid and thankful! 
payment to him and thame of the sowme of tuelff huudreth 
merkis ^ yeirly, togidder with corue to sex horsis, ay and 
quhill [so long as] we ressave thame in houshald with our 
self, beginning the first payment immediatlie efter thair 
committing of the said deid. 

Attour, howsovnne we ressave thame in houshald, we sail 
pay to the twa serving gentillmen the feis yeirlie as our awin 
[own] houshald gentillmen, and heirto we obliss ws vpone our 
honour. 

Subscryvit with our hand At Maybole the ferd [third] day 
of September 1602. Johne erle of Cassillis." 

With such echoes of an age not very remote 
ringing in one's ears, it is difficult to realise that 

'Equal to £800 Scots or £66 1.33. 4d. sterling. 

170 



CULZEAN 

this garden by the sea is the veiy scene of many 
episodes of a blood feud which raged for more than 
a hundred years, and cost many Scotsmen, gentle 
and simple, their lives. 

The lofty bluflF whereon the castle stands has 
doubtless Vjeen a fortified position from prehistoric 
times. It is inaccessible on the west, where the cliflF 
falls sheer to the sea, and the ground slopes sharjily 
away inland to the east, where a natural gully, 
originally deepened for defensive puqioses, has been 
ca.st into a couple of walled terraces forming a delect- 
able abode for many shrubs which cannot face an 
inland winter. The peculiar conformation of the 
ground affords that shelter from blustering winds 
and salt-laden gales which .so often neutralise the 
genial influence of the sea side. At the foot of the 
terraces is a broad, well-shaven lawn, with a fountain 
and architectural basin in the centre, and plenty of 
room for a couple of tennis courts besides. 

These tennis courts have become permanently 
marked out in a curious manner which I have not 
noted elsewhere. The lines drawn in whitewash during 
several successive seasons have killed the grass, which 
has been replaced by a strong growth of daisies. 
The mowing machine of course prevents these from 
flowering, but their flat shining leaves, darker than 
the surrounding grass, distinctly show the limits of 
the courts, so as to render unnecessary any fresh 
measurement when the nets are set out in summer. 
If it were possible to grow the aucuba-leaved daisy 

171 



SCOTTISH GARDENS 

"with sufficient certainty in the turf, players need 
desire no painted line.s. That pretty daisy is rather 
fickle in behaviour ; but perhaps it would respond to 
the stimulus of lime applied in a wash, which has 
had such a remarkable effect on the common green- 
leaved kind. One of the first plants to attract 
attention on the terrace walls is the violet abutilon 
{Abidiloii vitifoliwm), which grows twelve feet high, 
presenting a lovely spectacle when covered with its 
large flowers in June and July. The rare and tender 
Olearia Fosteri is (]uite happy here, sheltered by broad 
curtains of common myrtle and several species of 
Escallonia. Dry7nis winteri, also, grows I'obustly, pro- 
ducing fine trusses of fragrant white flowers early in 
the year, and perfecting its glossy foliage in the 
sunshine which floods every corner of the terraces 
and lawns. 

On the whole, however, these terraces, so ample 
in their proportions, so admirably suited in their 
south-easterly aspect for the culture of rare exotics, 
have not yet been turned to full account, as doubtless 
they soon will be, for their owner, the Marquess of 
Ailsa, constantly resides in the home of his ancestors, 
and is an enthusiastic and skilful amateur. Moreover, 
he is fortunate in his head gardener, Mr. Murray, 
who, both by knowledge and inclination, is well 
({ualilied for the charge of an extensive collection 
of exotics. Much of the wall space is occupied by 
plants which will thrive in any garden ; but these 
are being gradually removed to make way for choicer 

172 



CULZEAN 

things, whereof a very rich collection is being raised 
in the kitchen garden. That garden, a spacious 
enclosure within brick walls, lies about a quarter of 
a mile south of the castle, well sheltered by lofty 
beech woods and api)roached through an avenue of 
splendid silver firs. This tree, the loftiest European 
species, seldom receives the treatment of close canopy 
required to bring it to perfection. It is usually seen 
isolated or at wide intervals in mixed plantation, 
where its head, towering above all others, becomes 
ragged and bent by the prevailing winds. Moreover, 
unlike others of the genus Alms, it is a shade-bearer; 
hence, unless it be grown in dense mass, it throws 
out a multitude of strong side branches, which ruins 
the timber, naturally of fine quality. In this avenue 
the firs stand in close rank, their silvery boles rising 
straight and clean, a truly beautiful sight when the 
sunbeams slant through the dark canopy overhead. 
The largest of these trees has reached a height of 
120 feet, with a circumference of 15 feet at 4 feet 
from the ground. 

In the garden itself, attention is first claimed for 
things of mature growth. A single plant of Rhodo- 
dendron ponticu7n measures 243 feet in circumference 
and 21 feet high, and, when in full flower, shows 
what a truly splendid thing is this common shrub, 
so often vulgarised by use in the wrong place. It 
may surprise many people to see Buddleia colvillei 
already four feet high, flowering freely in the open 
border without any protection in winter. On the far 

173 



SCOTTISH GARDENS 

side of a grove of Cordyline australis, some of them 
15 feet high with the blossoming branches faded, is 
a bank set with Roinneya couUeri, a noble company. 
It is a question whether this fine poppywort should 
not be cut to the ground after flowering and allowed 
to spring again. This is not done at Culzeau, and the 
flowers, though very numerous, are not individually 
so large as those produced on young growths. At 
one end of this bank is a mass of the Kerguelen 
Island cabbage {Myosotidnim nohile) which, though it 
flowers and seeds abundantly, shows no symptom of 
that failure which has overtaken it in so many 
gardens. Rodgersia podophylla makes a luxuriant 
undergrowth in the shrubberies, with enormous leaves 
turning in August to bronze and copper tints. 

Among the young stock note may be made of 
healthy plants of Leucodendron argenteum, Senecio 
Totundifolius, Eleagnus marginata, Enhjanthus japonicus 
with waxy flowers in early summer, and deep red 
leaves in autumn. Hydrangea involncrata, of which 
the half-expanded trusses resemble huge blue moss- 
roses, Berheris congestifiora, with remarkably fine 
foliage, Mitraria coccinea, and many other rare plants, 
which Mr. Murray finds no difiiculty in rearing in 
the open till they are of a size to plant out in 
the grounds. 

Passing now into the woodland beyond the 
garden, where Miss Wilson has chosen her subject. 
Lord Ailsa's full design becomes manifest, namely, to 
devote these glades and glens and the margin of a 

174 



CULZEAN 

fine sheet of water so as to develop the natural 
character of hardy exotics set free in a Scottish 
environment. It would take much space to describe 
the many objects of interest in this wide demesne. 
Mention may be made of the luxuriant growth of 
tree-ferns {Dicksonia antarctica), many of which are 
six and eight feet high with far-spreading fronds. 
It is to be hoped that some enterprising nurseryman 
will set himself to propagate these noble cryptogams, 
which are far hardier than many people suppose, 
though very impatient of exposure to burning sun 
and high winds. The supply is severely limited at 
present, owing to the timely and commendable action 
of the New Zealand Government in prohibiting the 
exportation of these ferns, which were in danger of 
being exterminated by collectors. 

Many of the bamboos in this wild garden flowered 
themselves to death in the summers of 1905 and 
1906, notably Anmdinaria sirnoni, but many hundreds 
of seedlings have been raised to take their place, albeit 
it requires some trouble to protect from small birds 
the sweet grain produced by these giant grasses. 

One specially beautiful shrub claims notice before 
leaving a glade set with Cordyline and tree ferns, to 
wit, Myrtus {Eugenia) apiculata. Fully seven feet high, 
set with panicles of bell-shaped fragrant blossoms, 
like rose-tinted ivory, the question which naturally 
suggests itself is, why is such a charming shrub, 
flowering in August and September, not more commonly 
planted ? 

175 



SCOTTISH GARDENS 

Of the interior of the great castle of the Kennedys, 
its spacious saloons and well-fiirnished armoury, this 
is not the place to treat ; but it may be observed in 
passing from it that nothing could be less applicable 
to it at the present day than the description given 
by the Parliamentarian commander. Sir William 
Brereton, who, having occasion to lodge at Culzean 
during the civil war, has the following note about 
his quarters : 

" A pretty, pleasantly-seated house or castle, which looks 
full upon the main sea. Hereunto we went, and there found no 
hall, only a dining-room or hall, a fair room, and almost as large 
as the whole pile, but very skittishly kept ; unswept ; dishes, 
trenchers and wooden cups thrown up and down, and the room 
very nasty and unsavoury." 

Reckoning one thing against another, perhaps we 
have less reason than some people would have us 
believe to regret the passing of the good old times. 



176 



LECKIE 



STIRLINGSHIRE 




HE old house of Leckie stands about 
six miles west of Stirling on that 
fair wooded slope which makes the 
foot-hills of the precipitous Lennox 
range, separating it from the flat 
Carse of Menteith, through which lowland Forth^ 
deep-cradled in willowy banks, winds her eastward 
way to meet her Highland sister, impetuous Teitli. 
Apt emblems, these two rivers, of the two races of 
men whose confines lay along their course of yore. 
The Teith, poured from the great lochs of Vennachar 
and Lubnaig, rushes out upon the plain with as 
much tumult as did of old the Highland caterans, 
swarming from mountain and glen to drive a 
prey : the Forth — silent, sullen, profound — flows with 
scarcely perceptible current, yet moves as resistlessly 
as men of Saxon blood to the appointed end. 

A beautiful old house, designed for that com- 
bination of domestic ease with defensive qualities 
that was the aim of Scottish architects in the 
hazardous reign of Queen Mary. On the east side 
Y 177 



SCOTTISH GARDENS 

a wing has been thrown out to meet the more 
exacting" requirements of the eighteenth century ; 
but even that did not serve to satisfy a modern 
househoki, and in the nineteenth century a brand 
new mansion was erected ; the ancient home, with 
all its chequered association, was evacuated, the 
green "pleuse" and flowery borders were ploughed 
up, and the old house was applied to the accommotia- 
tion of workmen and their tamilies. 

Yet it was not upon the tine new terraces or 
among the flaunting parterres that Miss Wilson's 
choice of a subject fell, but under the time-worn 
walls, where a few flowers still linger, though the 
former inmates have passed away. The house, so 
fai" as it is inhabited, now serves for a M-orking 
man's dwelling ; and readers may be disposed to 
dispute its claim for a place among Scottish gardens. 
Indeed, it aflbrds no exanq:>le of successful culti-sa- 
tion. The flowers are but those whose constitution 
enables them to survive neglect and run wild ; but 
the drawing illustrates so well those gleams and 
flashes of colour which we sometimes see reflected 
from a forgotten past, that I could not rind it in 
my heart to put it aside. 

In this instance the colour comes from two species 
of Tropi\3olum — namely, the annual Indian Cress {T. 
iiasturtiuin), and the perennial T. specioMim, which 
cottagers sometimes call, by easy transposition of 
consonants, the " petroleum plant." Both of these are 
natives of South America, and, like many others 

178 



LECKIE 

from the same region, adapt themselves with re- 
markable readiness to the cool soil and humid air 
of the north. The exquisite beauty of the perennial 
species, with its delicate leafage, festoons of carmine 
blossom and blue berries, has been the despair of 
many English amateurs ; for there are very few places 
south of Yorkshire where it will consent to flourish. 
Yet it is very capricious ; establishing itself some- 
times in the most unexpected way and in the least 
likely environment. Thus in Mrs. Benson's beautiful 
garden at Buckhurst in Sussex, on a dry, hot soil, 
this tropaeolum has possessed itself of some of the 
borders, over-running shrubs and walls as wantonly 
and irresistabl}^ as in any Scottish cottage garden. 

Leckie, like most places in this central plain of 
Scotland, is rich in historic association. It belonged 
once to King Robert the Bruce, who, in 1326, gave 
half the lands to his ancient ally Malcolm, Earl of 
Lennox, receiving in exchange two plough-gates of 
land at Cardross on the Clyde,^ where he built him- 
self a country house and spent his declining years in 
the usual pursuits of a country gentleman — hunting, 
hawking, farming and yachting. It was at Leckie 
that Prince Charlie lay after Lord George Murray 
had routed General Hawley at Falkirk. It was 
the last house he occupied in the Lowlands, setting 
forth thence in the dark days of January, 1746, on 
his ill-starred march to the north, where his star 
was to be quenched for evermore on Culloden Moor. 

' Not Cardross on the Forth, which is only a few miles east of Leckie. 

179 



DALZFJJ. ( ASTLE 



l,AN AUKSHIKK 




T is told of a (listiiinuislu'd l^'rciiclmian 
who ai)|)lic'(l liimseir rcsolutolv to uiastor 
the anoiualios of Kuglish oitlio<j,Tapliy 
aiul pronunciation, thai ho nuulo fainu)us 
|)roi;ri'ss with ordinary vocahkvs such as 
" roui;h " and " |»loni;h," " rcail " and "bread," the 
viM-b "sow" and l\w substantive "sow," etc.; but 
had to (.H)nt"ess himself i^'raA elieci ainonu- proi)er names. 
"Here," lie complained, "is a gentleman w lio spells 
his name C-n-o-L-M-o-N-n-K-L-E-v, and you tell me it 
sounds ' Marchbanks!" But it is not reasonabU>, that!" 
Ki|ually deceitful is the pitfall ting It'or the 
southerner who mispronounces tlu> name Hal/ell 
according to its spelling. t)r, as he or she may feel 
disposed to ])ut it, pronounces it according to the 
misspelling. The correct pronunciation is attained 
simply by naming the consonants d l, with stress on 
the 1-. '• Then, why on earth, ' grumbles the English 
visitor, "cannot Scotsmen spell names as they wish 
them pronounced r' To w'hich fair rejoindtM- might 
be made by referring to such Knglish names as 
Worcester, Cirencester, etc. ; only that is the fu quoqiu; 

180 



DALZELL CASTLE 

form of argument — scarcely courteous, I trow ; so it 
may be explained that in the old Scottish alphabet 
the character z did not represent the soft sibilant as 
in " zebra," but the consonantal y, as in " youth," to 
distinguish it from the vowel y, as in " syllable." 
If you press nie further and inquire how "Dal" can 
fairly be supposed to represent the sound " dee," I 
am driven to retort that it is no whit more 
absurd than to uTite " Pontefract " when you mean 
one to read " Pomfret." So we start fair, you see : 
and having settled that point, let us look into 
Lord Hamilton's pretty Clydeside garden. 

It is formed in terraces cut in the steep side of 
a deep and rocky gorge, through which a burn brawls 
impatiently to join the sweeping Clyde. Quoth 
William Cobbett, who paid a visit to Dalzell in 
1832, " Here, were I compelled to live in Scotland, 
would I choose to reside." Since that time seventy — 
nearly eighty — years have run, to the mighty detri- 
ment of the atmosphere ; for the development of 
mining, smelting, and malodorous industries in variety 
has greatly altered for the worse the aspect of this 
part of Clydesdale. Scarcely Avould Sir Walter Scott 
recognise the groves round neighbouring Cambus- 
nethan, where there is a railway station, solemnl}' 
placarded as " Tillietudlem," in compliance with the 
unconscious decree of the Wizard of the North. 

But what Dalzell has lost in environment it has 
gained in the charm of contrast. You step oflF the 
tram midway between the busy hives of Motherwell 

181 



SCOTTISH GAEDENS 

and Wishaw, enter the park gate, and you have 
not passed far beneath an avenue of limes before 
you have exchanged an atmosphere pulsating with 
industry and pungent with its waste products into 
one vibrating with the song of birds and redolent 
of hawthorn and lilac. On the way to the flower 
garden you pass some fine trees — notably, an im- 
mense oak close to the castle. It separates into 
several great branches at ten feet above the ground, 
and is not remarkable for height ; but it contains 
an enormous bulk of solid timber, the bole at its 
narrowest part measuring twenty-four feet in girth. 
It is a deceptive tree in one respect. At first sight 
I judged it to be of the sessile-flowered variety, which 
is the prevailing native form in the western districts 
of Scotland ; and this impression was confirmed by 
the fact that the leaves were set on foot-stalks. 
But closer inspection showed that the flowers were 
also on long foot-stalks, that the leaves had " auricles " 
or little rounded flaps at the base, and that they 
were perfectly smooth on the back, without the 
pubescence which the sessile oak invariably has in 
greater or less quantity. This tree, therefore, belongs 
undoubtedly to the pedunculate race. 

The flower garden is set on the terraces on the 
south side of the house, and very charming it is, 
with a happy combination of formality and freedom. 
Miss Wilson has chosen her subject on the upper 
terrace, when the Dutch borders, deeply bordered 
with box, were aglow with begonias. I followed her 

182 



DALZELL CASTLE 

in early summer, before the bedding out had taken 
effect, but there was plenty to please the eye and 
awaken interest. The terrace walls were so beauti- 
fully embroidered in parts with aubrietia, rock-roses, 
arabis, wall-flowers, saxifrages, dianthus, and such like, 
which had been inserted as seedlings in the chinks 
of the masonry, and had grown into hanging cushions, 
that one could not but wish that some of the ivy, 
of which there is over-much to please a gardener, 
might be cleared off in favour of choicer growths. 

The terrace stairs are neither prim nor kept too 
scrupulously bare. On the contrary, saxifrages, bell- 
flowers and yellow corydalis enliven every step and 
joint, with here a springing fern or foxglove, and 
there a hanging clematis. There is just enough allur- 
ing disarray to soften the architectural preciseness of 
the design. 

The lower terrace is even more delightful, for 
here a broad grass walk is laid between two long- 
herbaceous borders. Woad tosses its golden spray 
amid troops of iris, and woodrufl" wafts its delicate 
incense from every waste corner. And to complete 
the charm, the sound of running water is ever in 
one's ears, rising from the burn far below, where, in 
a grassy glade, Gunnera spreads her broad sails, to 
be viewed, as so seldom they are aright, from above. 
On the further cliff", the woodland mantle parts 
broadly here and there to display great bays of 
rhododendron. They are chiefly the common R. 
ponticwn, a plant with which familiarity has bred 

183 



SCOTTISH GAEDENS 

something stronger than contempt ; but viewed from 
afar in this way nothing could be more beautiful 
than those great pools and channels of soft rose 
interrupting the surrounding verdure. 

The beauty of this garden is greatly enhanced by 
its unison with the castle perched above it, which, 
originally built by the Dalzell, Earl of Carnwath, 
was sold in 1647 to James Hamilton, second son 
of John of Orbiston, who built wings to the old 
keep. Too many similar houses either have been 
abandoned for more commodious mansions and been 
sulfered to moulder in dishonoured neglect, or have 
been unskilfully and inharmoniously enlarged to meet 
the requirements of modern households. Dalzell 
Castle has escaped both these indignities. The 
original keep, grimly and massively defensive, with 
walls seven feet thick, received large additions in 
the picturesque style of the seventeenth century. 
Imminent was the danger of disfigurement when it 
was determined to make it yet larger in the mid- 
Victorian era — an afiluent period which was so fatal 
to many a historic pile ; but the late Lord Hamilton 
was gifted with a nice judgment in matters structural 
and decorative, and also had the rare advantage of 
co-operation with R. W. Billings, who, for three whole 
years, devoted his rare knowledge and skill to enlarg- 
ing and beautifying the old house, leaving it so that 
neither antiquaries, esthetes, nor landscape gardeners 
can find foothold for a single unkind comment. 

The castle occupies a site close to the Roman 
184 



DALZELL CASTLE 

military road, known as Watling Street, and anti- 
quaries may hear, with less or more scepticism, that 
the garden summer-house was built in 1736 on the 
site of a Roman camp. The spacious grounds beyond 
and around the terraces are planted with many choice 
trees and flowering shrubs. Never have I seen such 
abundance of pink and crimson hawthorn — pity 'tis 
that the lord of this fair demesne should miss them 
in their prime, for, like the Laird o' Cockpen, 

" His mind it ta'en up wi' aflFairs o' the State " 

at this season. 

Midway between the house and the kitchen garden 
is a well-ordered rose garden, sheltered from cutting 
winds by thriving conifers, deciduous trees, and 
hybrid rhododendrons. Two very shapely scarlet 
oaks add much grace to this part of the grounds. 
A dell near the carriage drive has been planned as 
a bog garden on a scale exceeding the means of 
keeping rampant growth in restraint. Coarse herbs 
almost invariably get the upper hand in such places 
to the obliteration of lowlier plants, and I saw little 
to enjoy here except bamboos, Siberian iris, and 
double lady's smock. It is a place to suit Primula 
japonica, which, when first brought to this country 
in 1874 was priced at 30s. a piece, but can now be 
grown in profusion by scattering the seed in moist 
places. The original strong crimson of this flower, 
dangerously near magenta, has broken into a variety 
of charming tints of pink, cream, and lavender. 

z 185 



BARNCLUITH 



LANARKSHIRE 




I^ARNCLUITH, or Baron's Cleugh as it 
used to be, and should be still called, is 
in the same densely-peopled, clangorous, 
tram-ridden, smoke-shaded district as 
Dalzell, lying scarcely outside the 
mining and manufacturing town of Hamilton, as 
Dalzell does outside Motherwell. But the seclusion 
of one is as perfect as that of the other, owing to the 
precipitous nature of the glen where it is built and the 
luxuriant greenwood which clothes the clifls on each 
side of the Avon. Like Dalzell also in this, that it 
owes its erection to a Hamilton, namely, John of 
Broomhill, ancestor of the present Lord Belhaven, who 
built the triple dwelling house in 1583. Dorothy 
Wordsworth dismissed it in a sentence, devoting pages 
to describe the oppressive splendour of Hamilton 
Palace on the other side of the high road ; but it is 
certain that neither she nor her husband can have 
penetrated this delectable pleasaunce, for no poet 
might view unmoved such a felicitous fusion of art 
with nature. In good truth the approaches to 

186 




BAKNCIAITH. 



BARNCLUITH 

Barncluith are the reverse of promising. You turn o& 
the tram Une to the east of the town, and follow for 
half a mile or so what was once a country lane, but is 
now a partly-built line of small villas or large cottage 
dwellings. Great trees have been uprooted to make 
wa}^ for these, the roadway is worn into deep ruts in 
the course of transition into a common street, along 
which you proceed until, with dramatic suddenness, 
the scene changes. The way parts in two, passing on 
either side of a row of the weirdest sycamores you ever 
saw. Stretching their immense arms across both 
roads, these half dozen venerable giants remind one 
of the fantastic growths in Salvator Rosas impossible 
forests. The right-hand road leads up to the gate- 
way which admits to Hamilton High Parks, where 
the wild white cattle still browse beneath the 
gnarled oaks of Cadzow Forest ; the one to the 
left descends to another gate, within which round a 
narrow plateau of closely-mown sward, stand at 
diflferent elevations the three houses which form the 
mansion of Barncluith. One is puzzled to understand 
why there should be three, instead of but one, nor 
have I met anybody who could explain the mystery ; 
howbeit, the resulting effect is picturesque in the 
highest degree. 

"Barncluith," says Mr. Neil Munro, "is of all the ancient 
dwellings in that romantic neighbourhood the one which should 
most bewitch the angler ; it was so obviously built for peace 
and an artistic eye and the propinquity of good fishing, while 
all the others were built for war." 

187 



SCOTTISH GAEDENS 

But you will hasten forward to view the garden — 
not that modern arrangement of parterres which 
occupies the farther end of the plateau, which, indeed, 
is bright enough with roses and summer flowers within 
a girdling yew hedge, fantastically carved according 
to the archaic craft of toxidendry, but that other 
garden to the west of the house where the ground falls 
sheer to the sparkling Avon two hundred feet below, 
whereof Mr. R. S. Lorimer has written — 

" Barncluith is quite unlike anything else : a detailed 
description can convey but little idea of its charm. It is the 
most romantic little garden in Scotland. Lying on one side of 
a great wooded valley, it is a veritable hanging garden. Four or 
five terraces, one above the other, sticking on the side of a cliff 
the general angle of which is about 55 degrees. Two little 
summer houses, great trees of scented box, and the flowers 
gathered here you feel sure would be, not a bouquet, but a posy 
— such an atmosphere about the place. In the twilight or the 
moonlight destinies might be determined in this garden." 

The risk would not be less, methinks, at high noon, 
for there are alleys here and shaded bowers where 
Sol at his meridian can never do more than temper 
the green gloaming. It is not a garden wherein 
children could be turned loose to play, for the terraces 
are narrow — little more than dizzy ledges — with no 
guardian rail or breastwork to break or prevent a fall. 
The great extent of buttressed walls, with narrow 
borders at the foot, off'er the most fascinating field for 
the enthusiast in horticulture. At present ivy runs 
riot over far too much of the wall-space, which might 

188 



BARNCLUITH 

be occupied by au extensive collection of the choicest 
flowering shrubs. The borders also, eflfectively as 
they are stored with familiar things, such as rockets, 
stocks, poppies, wall-flower and ferns, present the most 
tempting variety of aspects to meet the requirements 
of every kind of hardy subject. This most enviable 
demesne has lately passed into the hands of a new 
owner (or at least occupier) for whom a most absorbing 
occupation lies await, if he has any turn for it, in 
improving these terraces into one of the most remark- 
able gardens in existence, horticulturally, as it is 
already architecturally. 

For the rest, these terraces are a fantasia of clipped 
yew and box. One need not grudge the labour spent 
on this somewhat barbarous form of decoration, albeit 
one may prefer a tree in the form which God has pre- 
scribed for it to one hewn laboriously into the shape 
of a peacock oi* a tea-pot. Nevertheless, there is time 
and money spent here upon what one cannot but 
regard as misdirected industry. For instance, the 
whole length of one of these terraces is occupied by 
no less than forty little square beds in the Dutch 
manner, each with its box edging, each enclosed with 
a gravel path. Weeding these paths and clipping this 
box must absorb a considerable amount of attention, 
without a corresponding spectacular result ; for the 
efiect would be far finer were these toy beds thrown 
into one long border, filled with the flowers of all sea- 
sons. They are designed, of course, for the separate 
cultivation of masterpieces of the florist's skill, and, 

189 



SCOTTISH GARDENS 

if employed in that way, would form a distinct and 
attractive feature ; but devoted as they are merely 
for the display of common flowers, the effect is 
meaningless and irritating. 

The delights of this garden are greatly enhanced by 
the lovely views up and down the winding Avon, and 
across to the rich woodland on the further shore. 
And over all reigns that sense of seclusion and repose 
which cannot fail to appeal to the hard-wrought man 
of affairs as strongly as to the habitual loiterer. 



190 



DUNROBIN 



SUTHERLAND 




UNROBIN CASTLE occupies on the 
east coast a position similar to that of 
Culzean Castle on the west. Each is built 
on the summit of a high sea cliff, the 
broad Moraj Firth stretches in front 
of one as the spacious Firth of Clyde does before 
the other ; and each has been in possession of the 
same family from a time anterior to any written 
record. We find, at least, no documentar}^ evidence 
of the ownership of Dunrobin previous to 1197, when 
the territory of Sutherland was forfeited by Harold 
Maddadson, Norse Earl of Caithness, for rebellion, 
and bestoM^ed by William the Lion upon Hugh, son 
of Freskin the Fleming. From this Hugh the present 
Duke of Sutherland traces direct descent through his 
great-grandmother, Elizabeth, daughter and sole heir 
of the nineteenth Earl of Sutherland. 

In yet another respect these two houses enjoy a 
common characteristic, inasmuch as the climate of 
Dunrobin is almost, if not quite, as favourable to the 
growth of choice and delicate vegetation as that of 

191 



SCOTTISH GARDENS 

Culzean, although Dunrobin is 280 miles further north 
than Culzean, and the winter of inland Sutherland 
is far more severe than that of Ayrshire. It is 
difficult to account for the peculiar clemency which 
distinguishes the shores of the Moray Firth, for that 
great inlet lies far out of the direct course of the 
gulf stream ; but certain it is that, wherever shelter 
can be provided from the furious winds which rage 
in this region during the winter months, all forms of 
vegetation display vigour and luxuriance in a remark- 
able degree. Robert Gordon of Straloch, geographer 
and cartographer to Charles I., took note of this. 

" Dunrobin, the Erie of Sutherland his special! residence, a 
house well seated upon a mote hard by the sea, with fair 
orchards, when ther be pleasant gardens jjlanted with all kinds 
of froots, hearbs and floors [flowers] used in this kingdom, and 
abundance of good saphorn [saffron], tobacco and rosemarie, the 
froot being excellent, and cheeflie the pears and cherries." 

One is disposed to murmur at the taste of an age 
which swept away this old garden and its contents, 
to make way for terraces and parterres on a grand 
scale in the Italian manner, when the second Duke 
of Sutherland en}arged the castle in 1845-51 ; never- 
theless, the ground lies so beautifully, the views from 
the terrace stairs are so commanding, and the trees 
crowd down so close to the tide, that the whole effect 
is very fine. At all events, we have here an example, 
scarcely to be surpassed elsewhere, of the art of horti- 
culture as it prevailed in the early Victorian era. 
Should the passion for cultivating rare plants ever 

192 




>*v 



DUNKOBIX. 



DUNROBIN 

overtake a lord of this stately demesne, soil, aspect 
and climate combine to assure him of an ample 
reward. 

In the garden of Dunrobin one cannot but be 
impressed, as in other historic Scottish houses, with 
a sense of contrast between past and present. Where 
everything seems so orderly and secure, it is good to 
remember the system of anarchy and violence which 
once over-rode all law. No part of Scotland was 
more fiercely riven with blood-feuds than the counties 
of Sutherland and Caithness. Administration of 
justice was, of necessity, committed to the barons, 
and, like all hereditary functions, was liable to gross 
abuse when it passed into unworthy hands. 

The chronicle of crime and terrorism in these 
counties is so confused, the actors in deeds of 
violence changed sides so often, that it is difficult 
to follow the intricate narrative. But in the six- 
teenth century two implacable rivals stand out 
among the ruck of minor marauders in the persons 
of the Earl of Sutherland and the Earl of 
Caithness. In 1514 the Earldom of Sutherland 
devolved upon Elizabeth, sister of John, eleventh 
earl. She married Adam Gordon, second son of the 
Earl of Huntly, and her husband became titular 
Earl of Sutherland. Adam, being a man of common 
sense, determined to put an end to the wasteful 
rivalry between the house of Dunrobin and the Earl 
of Caithness. Each had a common enemy in the 
clan Mackay, inveterate brigands, who raided the 
2a 193 



SCOTTISH GARDENS 

lands of both earls with fine impartiality. Adam 
made over certain lands in Strathiillie, now known as 
Helmsdale, to the Earl of Caithness, in consideration 
for assistance to be given against the Mackays. 
Caithness took possession of the lands, and straight- 
way joined forces with the Mackays, who, during 
Sutherland's absence in Edinburgh, made a destruc- 
tive raid upon the lands of Dunrobin. The countess 
was at home, however, and sent out her natural 
brother, Alexander Sutherland, who overtook the 
Mackays at Torran-dubh, near Rogart, and inflicted 
upon them a bloody defeat. " This," wrote Gordon 
of Straloch, "was the greatest conflict that hitherto 
lies been foughtin between the inhabitants of these 
countreyes, or within the diocy of Catteynes, to our 
knowledge." 

Alexander might have lived prosperous and 
popular after this, but his victory over the Mackays 
turned his head. He made alliance with the heredi- 
tary enemies of his house, marrying the sister of the 
very chieftain whom he had overthrown at Torran- 
dubh, and laid claim to the earldom of Sutherland, 
alleging that he was no bastard, but had been born 
in wedlock. He had a considerable following in the 
Sutherland clan, and, assisted by the Mackays, seized 
Dunrobin Castle when the Earl was again absent. 
The earl returned, however, raised his clan, recaptured 
the castle in which Alexander had left a garrison, and, 
in a subsequent raid by Alexander, took that gentle- 
man, struck off his head and stuck it on a pole on 

194 



DUNROBIN 

the top of Dimrobin Castle, " which shews us," says 
Gordon of Sti'aloch, " tha^ whatsoever by fate is 
allotted, though sometimes foreshewed, can never be 
avoyded. For the witches had told Alexander the 
bastard that his head should be the highest that ever 
wes of the Sutherlands ; which he did foolishlye inter- 
pret that some day he would be earl of Sutherland, 
and in honour above all his predecessors." 

For more than fifty years after this the two earls 
and their successors waged almost incessant guerrilla 
upon each other's lands and people, a condition of 
affairs far from unusual between country neighbours 
in Scotland during that troubled century, but accom- 
panied in this instance by deeds of more than common 
brutality. When Queen Mary came to the throne, 
John Gordon, twelfth Earl of Sutherland, known as 
" Good Earl John," held the upper hand ; but he 
was forfeited and banished in 1563 on a charge of 
complicity in the rebellion of his kinsman, the Earl 
of Huntly. After Queen Mary's abdication in 1567, 
he was restored by Act of Parliament, and returned 
to Sutherland with his third wife, widow of the fourth 
Earl of Menteith. 

During Sutherland's exile, you may be sure that 
the Earl of Caithness had not been idle. He had 
induced Sutherland's uncle, Gilbert Gordon of Gartay, 
to marry Isobel Sinclair of Dunbeath. Gilbert died, 
leaving one son, John, who lived with his mother 
at Helmsdale Castle, a lonely fortalice about thirteen 
miles north eastward along the coast from Dunrobin. 

195 



SCOTTISH GARDENS 

Sutherland, also, had but one son, Alexander, who 
alone stood between Isobel's son and succession to 
the earldom. Caithness persuaded his kinswoman 
Isobel that Alexander must be put out of the way. 
What will not woman dare and do for the sake of her 
son ? But more was wanted. A single murder would 
not suffice, for the Countess of Sutherland was known 
to be near her confinement. Caithness insisted that 
a clean sweep must be made of the whole brood. 

This was planned in the following way. In July, 
1567, Isobel invited the Earl and Countess of 
Sutherland, with their son. Lord Alexander, to 
spend a few days at Helmsdale, that the young- 
lord might enjoy some sport with the deer in 
Strathullie. One evening she put poison in the 
ale prepared for supper. Sutherland and his countess 
drank of it, and were taken ill ; but Lord Alex- 
ander remained late on the hill and supper was 
finished before he and John Gordon, Isobel's son, 
returned. Sutherland, feeling the poison at work 
and suspecting the truth, dragged off the table- 
cloth, forbade his son to take bite or sup in that 
house of death, and sent him forward fasting to 
Skibo. The Earl and Countess managed to get to 
Dunrobin, where they both died within five days ; 
but not before their death had been avenged by a 
strange stroke of fate. Isobel, probably, had made 
some pretext to keep her son out of the supper- 
room ; but the lad, being thirsty and tired with 
hunting, sent a servant for a horn of ale, which he 

196 



DUNROBIN 

quaflFed, fell ill, and died after two days of agony. 
The wretched mother was taken by Sutherland's 
people, sent to Edinburgh for trial, was condemned 
to death, and only escaped execution by taking her 
own life in prison, after denouncing the Earl of 
Caithness as having commanded her to commit the 
crime. 

The said Earl was by no means diverted from 
his purpose by the miscarriage of his plot. The 
new Earl of Sutherland being under age, John 
Earl of Atholl was appointed his guardian, who 
most nefariously sold the wardship to Caithness 
himself, Sutherland's deadliest enemy, who carried 
the young earl off to the grim fortress of Girnigo, 
scene of innumerable and unspeakable cruelties. 
Even in that secret retreat, however, he did not 
dare immediately to attempt the life of his ward. 
As a preliminary, perhaps, he compelled him to 
marry his daughter, Lady Barbara Sinclair, a woman 
of open profligacy, the paramour of Mackay of Far. 
The bride was two-and-thirty ; the bridegi'oom only 
fifteen. Caithness then took up his abode at 
Dunrobin, where he destroyed all the Sutherland 
papers, and proceeded to administer his son-iu-law's 
estates, inaugurating a reign of terror, the memory 
whereof still haunts the hills and shores of this fair 
land. Many he drove from their homes by violence, 
slaying those who resisted and forcing others by 
inhuman tortures to surrender their property. He 
did not spare even his own son, the Master of 

197 



SCOTTISH GARDENS 

Caithness, who displeased him by showing too 
much mercy to the people of Dornoch, whom he 
had been ordered to massacre. He kept him in a 
dungeon at Girnigo for seven years, at the end of 
which the wretched man was put to a horrible 
death. His gaolers were two cousins of his own, 
David and Ingram Sinclair. Whether they wearied 
of their duty, or whether Caithness instructed them 
now to bring it to an end, certain it is that they 
left their prisoner without food for two or three 
days, then supplied him liberally with salt beef, 
gave him nothing to drink and left him to perish 
in an agony of thirst. 

The monster who could thus inhumanly treat 
his own son and heir was not likely to show much 
tenderness to him whom he had forced to become 
his son-in-law. Nor did he so. In 1569 Caithness 
left Dunrobin for Edinburgh, having given minute 
instructions for the assassination of the young Earl of 
Sutherland. The plot was betrayed to one of the 
Gordons, who collected a party and concealed them in 
Dunrobin Glen, not far from the castle. Alexander 
Gordon of Sidderay then went forward, disguised as a 
pedlar, obtained speech with Sutherland, warned him 
of his danger, and bade him come to the glen next 
morning. The servants of Caithness had instructions 
never to let Sutherland out of their sight ; but 
the young man managed to lead them to the 
appointed place, where they sprung the ambush. 
The Gordons overpowered the keepers, cut their 

198 



DUNROBIN 

throats, and carried off their chieftain to the strong 
castle of Strathbogie. 

Thereafter Sutherland managed to keep free from 
the clutches of his dangerous neighbour. Not only so, 
but he had no difficulty in obtaining decree of divorce 
against his wife, Barbara Sinclair, and in 1573 married 
Lady Jean Gordon, daughter of the fourth Earl of 
Huntly, the beautiful woman whom Bothwell had 
divorced in order to marry Mary Queen of Scots. 

Standing on the terrace above the garden at 
Dunrobin, one is on the very scene of these and 
many similar deeds which seem well-nigh incredible 
in our humdrum age. The keep still stands wherein 
the tyrant Earl of Caithness kept Sutherland 
a prisoner doomed to death, for it is incorporated 
in the great pile erected by the second Duke of 
Sutherland. From the same standpoint may be 
seen a memorial of a later age — the age of Gar- 
gantuan conviviality — in the shape of a large garden- 
house below the castle. This now is fitted up as a 
museum, and contains a fine collection of local 
antiquities and natural history ; but it served a 
different purpose in the eighteenth century. Hither 
the lord of the castle used to adjourn with his 
guests after an early dinner, to spend the long 
evening plying them with strong wine. Outside the 
servants assembled towards midnight on the broad 
stairway leading to this temple of Bacchus, the 
duty of each being to recover his master and lead 
(or carry) him to bed. 

199 



SCOTTISH GARDENS 

Thus " the old order changeth, yielding place 
to new." Each generation of men lives in a different 
fashion from the last ; but the blackbird's note in 
Dunrobin Glen — the plover's pipe on Dunrobin 
shore — the scream of the eagle on Beinn Dobhrain — 
the yelp of the fox on Creag-a-ghlinne — have changed 
no whit since the Norsemen first drew up their 
black kyuls on Golspie strand. 

Yet there is one sound which the people of 
these glens once had good reason to recognise with 
dread, that is no longer heard hereabouts — the howl 
of the grey wolf It was at the very close of the 
seventeenth century that some sheep were destroyed 
in the Glen of Loth, about half way between 
Dunrobin and Helmsdale. At first this was believed 
to be the work of dogs, for it was supposed that 
the last of the wolves had been killed two or three 
years before in Assynt and Halladale. But an old 
hunter named Poison, living at Wester Helmsdale, 
recognising the real character of the culprits, set 
out with his son and a herd laddie to explore the 
recesses of Glen Loth. This is a place of many 
memories, for here, where the Sletdale burn joins 
the Loth, are the standing stones of Carrickachlich, 
Cairnbran, where Fingal's good dog Bran lies buried, 
and the holy well of Tobermassan. In the ravine of 
Sletdale Poison found his quest in the shape of a 
rift in the rocks, with the ground well trodden into a 
track leading into it. The fissure widened inwards, 
but was too narrow to admit a full-grown man ; so, 

200 



DUNROBIN 

having first failed to rouse what inmates thei^e might 
be by throwing in stones, the two lads were sent in 
to explore the cavern, while Poison kept watch out- 
side. Sure enough, they found a litter of fine whelps, 
and shouted news of their discovery to Poison. 

"Kill them quickly," he cried, poking his head 
into the crevice, " and come away." 

Just as he withdrew his head, a great she wolf, 
which had come up unobserved, dashed past him 
into the hole. Luckily, he managed to catch and 
keep hold of her bushy tail, which he twisted 
round his left arm ; but it required the force of 
both arms to hold the maddened brute ; Poison 
dared not loose his right hand to draw his knife, 
and his gun was out of reach. His son, all unaware 
of the mortal struggle outside, cried out from inside — 

" It is dark here now, father ; what is stopjDing 
the light from us ? " 

"You'll soon know," answered Poison, "if the 
root of the tail was to break ! " 

After this had gone on for some time, the 
wolf lay still for a moment or two to gather 
strength ; Poison made a snatch for his knife, and 
stabbed the animal in the hind-quarters, which 
made her turn and attempt to come out of the 
hole. But the hunter had the powerful l)east at 
a disadvantage ; keeping her jammed between the 
rocks, he managed to plant his blade in a vital 
part, and the last wolf in Sutherland shed its life- 
blood on the rocks and heather. 
2 b 201 



STOBHALL 



PERTHSHIRE 




N one respect the beautiful house of Stob- 
hall impresses one witli melancholy. It 
is a notable and commendable example 
of the manner in which ancient archi- 
tecture should be preserved from the 
ravages of our most edacious climate ; but it is no 
longer "a home," except for the caretaker, whose 
presence only seems to accentuate the silence which 
reigns undisputed where of old — 

" Joy was within and joy without, 
Vnder that wlonkest waw [splendid wall], 
Quhair Tay run down with stremis stout 
Full strecht vnder Stobschaw." 

The lands of Stobhall were granted by Robert the 
Bruce to Sir Malcolm Drummond after the great 
victory of Bannockburn, when so many of English 
Edward's barons were dispossessed of their estates 
in Scotland. It was the birthplace of Sir Malcolm's 
great-granddaughter, Annabella, who became Queen 
of Scots by her marriage with Robert III. It has 
descended through a long line of Drummonds to its 

202 




STOBHAI.L. 



STOBHALL 

present owner, the Earl of Ancaster, whose abode 
is in Strathearn, at Drummond Castle, famous for 
its architectural garden and terraces. Some might 
deem that garden more worthy than Stobhall of a 
place in this series, but it has been made the 
subject of so many essays and illustrations that we 
have given preference to the lonely and less well- 
known house in Strathtay. 

In truth, there is little that can be called a garden 
at Stobhall, only the place once bright with summer 
flowers, whereof a few, such as the grey asters in 
Miss Wilson's picture, have clung to the soil, mark- 
ing the change of seasons as the old sundial does 
the fleeting hours, till hours and seasons together 
roll up into centuries. Perhaps the place is fairer in 
its desolation than it ever was when it teemed 
with busy life. Certes, it would be difiicult to find 
in all Scotland a more enchanting scene than I 
beheld one May morning on visiting this spot. The 
pearl-grey walls of the old house gleamed softly in 
the sunshine, deeply mantled in the fresh verdure 
of sycamore and beech. Steeply sloped the green- 
sward to the river, starred and wreathed with 
late narcissus, purple orchis, and myriad humbler 
blooms. Far below where I stood, the Tay, lordliest 
of Scottish rivers, swept in smooth curves, shimmering 
in the light, glowering in the shade, to fling itself 
in sudden tumult over the Linn o' Campsie. And 
all around, far as the eye could range, was wealth 
of woodland, ancient trees and affluent tillage. 

203 



SCOTTISH GARDENS 

What a paradise of flowers might be created here ! 
which, after all, is but a sorry pretext for including 
among Scottish gardens a place where a garden 
was, but is not. Our excuse is that Stobhall remains 
in its desolation one of the most fascinating places 
in the realm. 

Those who are curious in architecture will find 
in the buildings interest that they miss in the 
garden. As at Barncluith, instead of a single man- 
sion there is a group of detached dwellings, the 
oldest and chief of them bearing the date 1578, and 
containing a remarkable chapel and rooms for priests. 
The ceiling of the chapel is in five compartments, 
each painted with figures on horseback, except one, 
which represents Rex Mauritanse mounted on an 
elephant. This decoration, coupled with the profu- 
sion of heraldic devices and the repetition Drummond 
motto Gang Warily, recalls the coloured roofs of 
the Chateau de Blois, with the everlasting sala- 
mander of Franqois I"^ One cannot be too grateful 
to the family which has so faithfully preserved this 
choice example of the Scottish renaissance. 



204 



RAEDEN HOUSE 



ABERDEENSHIRE 




OBERT, by the grace of God King of 
Scots, ill the course of the strenuous 
years when he was making good his 
claim to that exalted title (being as 
yet recognised by the Pope and King 
Edward of England only as the rebel Robert de 
Brus, sometime Earl of Carrick), did receive no little 
encouragement and support from the burgesses of 
Aberdeen ; whereof he made due note at the time. 
Certain monarchs have been known to do the like 
under similar stress of circumstances, yet have they 
failed to consult their tablets after the fortune of war 
has put it in their power to recompense such services. 
But Robert the Bruce had ever a warm heart and 
a liberal hand. Moreover, the expulsion of English 
landowners furnished him with ample means for 
rewarding his adherents ; wherefore, when the King 
had come to his own, the royal burgh of Bon Accord 
was among the first to receive substantial recogni- 
tion of help rendered in time of need. Upon the 
burgesses and community was conferred a royal 

203 



SCOTTISH GARDENS 

charter, confirming them in possession of their burgh 
and infefting them, their heirs and successors for 
ever, as owners of the royal forest of the Stocket, 
saving only to the Crown the timber growing in the 
said forest and such beasts of the chase as might 
chance to he found therein. 

Were good " King Hobbe " (as Edward Long- 
shanks used in derision to nickname his doughty 
opponent), permitted to revisit Aberdeen, it would be 
fine to watch his puzzled countenance as his eyes 
roved in vain quest for some familiar landmark. 
All, all is changed; only the river runs in its accus- 
tomed course. As for the forest, so earnestly have 
the Aberdonians exercised the right conferred in 
their charter of erecting " dwelling-houses and other 
buildings," that one can but guess now where were 
its precincts. Streets and terraces climb the braes 
where of old the stag couched and the red fox 
prowled, a state of things whereof the memory 
lingers in the name of Mr. Barclay's pretty resi- 
dence, Raeden House — the lair of the roe. It was 
once the property of Provost More, who built himself 
here a country residence towards the end of the 
eighteenth century, and enclosed with high walls of 
lasting granite, faced with brick, an ample garden. 
House and garden are now sundered, the latter 
being occupied by a market-gardener ; and Mr. Barclay 
has filched from his pasture land the flowerbeds 
which Miss Wilson has depicted in their autumn 
glow of chrysanthemums. It is a charmingly tran- 

206 




RAEDEN HOUSP:. 



RAEDEN HOUSE 

quil retreat, for although the tide of villas has 
flowed around it, and continues to flow, fine 
old trees confer a venerable appearance upon the 
mansion, and completely screen it in sequestered 
dignity from the world of trams and pillar boxes 
outside. 

It would be diflicult to contrive a climatic 
contrast more rapid and complete than I experienced 
in leaving London on a dripping, smoke-laden even- 
ing in June, and arriving next morning in brilliant 
sunshine at Aberdeen. The all-prevailing granite of 
the northern city (Aberdeen possesses the only 
granite-built cathedral in the world) sparkled clear 
and clean-cut in the morning rays ; neither streets 
nor houses bore any suggestion of the grime and 
mud engrained upon those of London, and the drive 
out to Raeden lay through suburbs wreathed in 
verdure and garden fronts gay with Clematis montana, 
laburnum, hawthorn red and white, lilacs, Weigelia 
and hybrid rhododendrons. True, there was a "snell" 
north wind ; but nothing could dim the brightness 
or stint the abundance of blossom on tree and shrub 
and herb. 



207 




COCKER'S NURSERY 

ABERDEEN 

AS8ING from Raeden House over the 
hill-top known as the Cocket Hat, 
one comes upon a wide extent of 
nursery ground ; and, forasmuch as our 
series of Scottish garden types would 
not be complete without a sample of commercial 
horticulture, Miss Wilson has chosen a comer of this 
ground called Honey Braes, which forms a litting 
subject for her art. The day may come when this 
drawing may have an interest more than aesthetic ; for 
already this part of the nurseries has been marked 
off in building plots, and the red-roofed house is 
doomed to disappear at no distant date. It was under 
these red tiles that Mrs. Byron {nee Catherine Gordon 
of Gight) lived with her son George, whom she 
described to her sister-in-law, Mrs. Leigh, as being 
"very well and really a charming boy" in 1791. 
Seven years later the " charming boy " succeeded his 
great-uncle, the " wicked Lord Byron," as sixth Lord 
Byron, with such results upon English literature as 
we wot of It suggests cui'ious commentary upon 

208 



COCKER'S NURSERY 

early training and what surprises may await those 
who calculate upon its result, to read Byron's notes 
upon his start in letters. " I had," he says, " a very 
serious, saturnine, but kind young man, named Pater- 
son, for my tutor. He was the son of my shoemaker, 
but a good scholar, as is common with the Scotch. 
He was a rigid Presbyterian also." 

The owner of this nursery, Mr. James Cocker, is an 
enthu.siast in his profession, one in whose company 
an eager amateur will find no summer's day too long. 
Field by field the speculative builder has encroached 
upon his border, and field by field he has retreated 
further into the country. Roses are his speciality; 
but there is much else to interest him who concerns 
himself, like the present writer, more with natural 
species than with florists' varieties. The first display 
to attract attention on this bracing June morning was 
a breadth of St. Bernard's lily — the fine variety known 
as Antlcericum liliago majus or Algerieme. Myriads of 
milk-white, golden-anthered blossoms of perfect shape 
waved in the breeze, suggesting irresistibly the 
question — why is this lovely lily so seldom seen in 
private gardens ? The answer may be supposed to be 
that its flowering season coincides with the summer 
meetings at Epsom and Ascot, when so many country 
people of means and leisure, however little they may 
care personally for racing, leave the country at its 
fairest to undergo the rush and discomfort of a 
London season. 

The Chilian Ouruia coccinea, so chary of its Vjrilliant 

2 c 209 



SCOTTISH GAEDENS 

flowers in most gardens, was thickly set with scarlet 
tubes in an open, but rather shady, border. Alpine 
anemones, both the white and the sulphur, were just 
over, but bore traces of recent display in hundreds 
of seed-tufts on tall stems. Very conspicuous and 
attractive was a seedling perennial lupine, bearing 
spikes of clear salmon colour, and near it a starry 
firmament of globe-flowers {Trolliua), lemon-yellow, 
sulphur and fiery orange, none of them, in our opinion, 
equal in grace and delicacy to the native T. eura'prnus. 

Pansies and violas were in infinite variety and 
copious bloom, the pure tints of these easiest of flowers 
being admirably shown up by the plan of planting 
them in strips of diflerent colours drawn diagonally 
across a long border. Incarvillea grandiflora, hitherto 
reputed somewhat tender, here grows in the open and 
on the flat as generously as its taller and better known 
relative /. Delavayi ; and that, as we all have learnt 
to our content, combines the constitution of a dande- 
lion with the refinement of a gloxinia. 

SisyrincJdwn odoratissirnum I have not seen else- 
where. It is to be hoped that Mr. Cocker will succeed 
in propagating it, for it is an interesting thing, 
hanging out white bells striped with purple on airy 
stalks a foot and a half high. The rarest treasure in 
the herbaceous section is a pure white Aldrwmeria 
chilensis, of which Mr. Cocker possesses a single plant, 
obtained, after long and diflicult negotiation, from an 
amateur who raised it. 

A pretty feature in these nurseries is a pergola 
210 



COCKER'S NURSERY 

of laburnum, which only requires to be mixed with 
Wistaria to create a perfect summer dream. But as 
Wistaria flowers uncertainly and sparingly thus far 
north, this design might be carried out eflfectively in 
warmer districts. An interesting example of the 
influence of scion upon stock may be seen in this 
pergola. Laburnum with variegated leaves having 
been grafted upon the ordinary species at a height 
of five feet or so, the stock has responded by putting- 
out variegated leaves at a considerable distance 
below the graft. 



211 




SME ATON-HEPBURN ' 

HADDINGTONSHIRE 

MEATON- HEPBURN is delightfully 
situated on the river Tyne in the most 
fertile champaign of all Scotland — the 
seaward portion of the county of Had- 
dington. The remarkable collection of 
trees, shrubs, and flowering herbs which adorns the 
grounds owes it affluence to the enthusiasm of two 
generations of amateurs, for to the love of trees which 
inspired the late Sir Thomas Buchan-Hepburn, his son 
and successor Sir Ai'chibald has added a keen intelli- 
gence in the cultivation of herbaceous and alpine 
plants. The herbaceous plants occupy borders in the 
old-fashioned walled garden ; where also is a teeming 
and interesting nursery of that most perplexing, yet 
fascinating race, the Saxifrages. S. Elizahethce and 
apiculata are particularly luxuriant, having overflowed 
in verdant volume the stone compartments assigned to 

' Owing to a severe illness in the spring of 1908, Miss Wilson unfortunately 
was prevented from visiting Smeaton-Hepburn in order to make a drawing in the 
garden there. Notwithstanding the consequent absence of a plate, I have thought 
that a few notes about this fine collection of shrubs and plants may be not with- 
out interest. 

212 



SMEATON-HEPBURN 

them. Two kinds of wind-flower, Anemone alpiiui 
and palmata alba were in great beauty when I saw 
these borders last ; and at that time, the end of May, 
the most conspicuous wall shrubs were Ceanothus 
rigidus sheeted with deep blue, and Coronilla emerus, 
pointilU or, as heralds would term it — in plain language 
sprinkled with clear canary yellow. Both these last 
betoken a genial, sunny climate, albeit we are here a 
long way north on the east coast. 

For the alpines, Sir Archibald has prepared a home 
worthy of his treasures ; a wide space sheltered by 
woods from cutting winds, yet lying fair to the sun, 
having been covered with rock-work constructed with 
far more attention to cultural requirements than to 
scenic eflect. Here is no tea-gardenish attempt to 
mimic the Himalayas or ape the Andes ; the plants 
are grouped upon raised ledges and mounds for the 
double purpose of securing rapid drainage and of bring- 
ing them under the eye for closer inspection ; while 
rocks are employed, not for mere effect, but to check 
radiation and evaporation, which, in excess, are the 
two chief adversaries to plant growth, and to provide 
a cool and natural root run for exacting mountaineers. 
To do justice to this fine collection would have taken 
more hours than I had to spare. Among the species 
which their luxuriance made it impossible to overlook 
were Gentiana verna, that capricious beauty so seldom 
seen taking kindly to imprisonment ; Mitella trifida, 
more attractive than the rest of the genus ; Saxifraga 
rhei swperha, really justifying its additional epithet, 

213 



SCOTTISH GAEDENS 

Primula farinosa making a miniature grove of rosy 
bloom, Ramondiu pyrenaica and Nathcdice, flowering 
profusely, but inclined to gasp for cooler shade. Pros- 
trate phloxes, Arenaria and encrusted saxifrages 
peopled the slopes in lavish abundance. The charming- 
Chatham Islands sorrel, Oxalis enneaphylla, had just 
opened one or two of its milky blossoms, and the time 
of Bianthus and Cainpanulce was at hand when a fresh 
chord of colour would be struck. 

Near the mansion house a fine deodar, 70 or 80 
years old, stands in sisterly proximity to Cupressus 
mac7-ocarpa from the opposite hemisphere. They have 
been of mutual benefit to each other by encouraging 
upward growth, and so preventing that podgy, lateral 
spread which is so destructive of the true character 
of most conifers. When will landscape gardeners 
learn that fine park timber cannot be had without 
submitting it first to forest discipline ? 

A splendid bush of Garrya ellyptica stands on the 
lawn before the house. It measures 63 feet in cir- 
cumference, and is the growth of 47 years, for it was 
killed to the ground in the winter of 1861. 

In crossing the park to the lake, one cannot fail 
to be charmed by the clouds of poet's narcissus 
springing from the turf in all directions. Never have 
I seen such a display ; they have run abroad in 
millions. Perhaps there is no other flower which 
unites purity of colour so completely with simple 
grace of form. Was this, think you, the species 
whereof Mahomet spoke when he said — " Let him 

214 



COCKER'S NURSERY 

who hath two loaves sell one, and buy flower of 
narcissus ; for bread is but food for the body, whereas 
narcissus is food for the soul " ? 

The most delectable part of all this demesne lies 
round the lake. A precipitous crag screens the 
southern shore, planted with many choice trees and 
shrubs. It is a great pleasure to be escorted thither 
by Mr. Brown, who has tended these grounds for 
more than fifty years, and can show you conifers 
100 feet high planted by himself under direction of 
the late Sir Thomas Hepburn. Specially notable are 
Picea sitcheims and Abies 7iobilis, and by ascending 
to the summit of the crag you may have the pleasure, 
unusual in this country, of viewing these lofty 
trees from a level with their tops. Here and there 
advantage has been taken of cleariugs in this fine 
wood to plant Himalayan rhododendrons, bam- 
boos and other shelter-loving growths. 



215 



ENVOI 

Farewell dear flowers: sweetly your time ye spent, 
Fit while ye lived for smell or ornament, 

And after death for cures. 
I follow straight, without complaints or grief, 
Since, if my scent be good, I care not if 

It be as short as yours. 

Gtorge Herbert. 



216 



APPENDIX A 



^ 



Mention may be made of a few species of rhododendron which 
have been proved to endure the climate of the West of Scotland 
as far north as Ross-shire. Partial shade overhead is beneficial, 
and they must be completely sheltered from violent winds. It 
is best to start them in a compost of peat and coarse sand in 
equal parts ; afterwards they will thrive in any free or light soil 
provided it does not contain lime in any form. The flowers of 
the early kinds may be destroyed by frost in some seasons, but 
their beauty is so great as to compensate for many failures by 
success in a favourable year ; and the foliage of most species is 
so decorative that the plants deserve cultivation for that alone. 
What is most to be dreaded is frost in April or May, after 
growth has begun. This too often destroys the terminal shoots 
and buds, but their place will be taken by the secondary ones. 
As most of these rhododendrons are costly, it will be prudent 
to proceed tentatively at first with a few of the hardiest species, 
which are marked in the following list by an asterisk (*), and to 
give them every possible advantage of shelter from wind. 

[The above was written before the destructive frost of 24th April 1908, 
which caught early rhododendrons in full growth and destroyed masses of 
bloom. Probably it has also ruined the prospects of next year's blossom, for 
the secondary growths are feeble and bear few flower buds.] 



Species. 


Colour of Flower. 


Height. 


Time of 
Flowering. 


Remarks. 


Rhododendron 

Aucklandi, 

* „ arboreum, - 


Pearl white 

White, rose or 
blood red 


8-10 ft. 
15-20 ft. 


V 

iii-v 


Leaves 10-15 in. long. 
Flowers very large. 
There are fine pink 
and crimson varie- 
ties. Sikkim. 

Beautiful waxy flow- 
ers. Sikkim. 



2d 



217 



APPENDIX A 



Species. 


Colour of Flower. 


Height. 


Time of 
Flowering. 


Remarks. 


* Rhododendron 












barbatum, - 


Intense blood 
red 


40-50 ft. 


iii, iv 


One of the hardiest. 
There is a rose 
coloured variety. 
Sikkim. 


* 


„ calophyllum. 


White - 


3-5 ft. 


V 


Sikkim. Flowers 
tubular. 


* 


„ campanulatum, 


Pale lilac 


8 ft. 


iv 


Very hardy. Sikkim. 


♦ 


„ Campbelli, 


White, with 
crimson spots 


20-30 ft. 


iv, V 


Sikkim. 


* 


„ campylocarpum, 


Sulphur or clear 
yellow 


6 ft. 


iv 


Sikkim. 


♦ 


„ Caucasicum, - 


Rosy outside 
white within 


1 ft. 
spreading 


vii 


The Caucasus. 


* 


„ ciliatum, 


Reddish purple 
or white 


2 ft. 
spreading 


v 


Sikkim. Very hardy 
and fragrant. One 
of the best. 


* 


„ cinnabarinum, 


Orange-red and 
yellow 


10 ft. 


V, vi 


Sikkim. Long, tubu- 
lar flowers, some- 
thing like Fuchsia 
conka. Being late 
in bloom it escapes 
spring frosts. 


# 


„ cinnaviomeum, 


White, spotted 


15-20 ft. 


iv 


Oi arboreum t3pe. 




„ decorum, 


purple 






A newly introduced 
Japanese species, 
which I have not 
yet seen in flower; 
but the foliage is 
magnificent and it 
appears quite hardy. 




„ Edgworthi, 


Pure white 


3 ft. 
straggling 


V, vi 


Sikkim. Very large 
flowers. 


♦ 


,, Eximmm, 


Cream, with 
purple base 


— 


vi 


Bhotan. Very fine 
foliage, nearly akin 
to R. Fakoneri. 



218 



APPENDIX A 



Species. 


Colour of Flower. 


Height. 


Time of 
Flowering. 


Kemarks. 


* Rhododendron 












Exoniense, 


White, tinged 
rose 


5 ft. 


V 


Sikkim. Very frag- 
rant. 


* 


,, Falconeri, 


White - 


30 ft. 


V 


Sikkim. One of the 
hardiest, but im- 
patient of wind. 
Should be well 
mulched in the 
manure or brewers' 
draff to encourage 
the splendid foli- 
age. 


* 


,, feiruffineum, - 


Bright rose 


2 tt. 


v-vii 


The Alpine Eose : 
Central Europe. 


* 


,, Fordii, - 


White - 


— 


vi 


China. 


♦ 


„ Fortunei, 


Pale pink 


12 ft. 


V 


China. Very hardy, 
with large flowers. 
Parent of many 
hybrids. 


♦ 


„ fulgens, - 


Blooil red 


6 ft. 


iv, V 


Eastern Himalayas. 


♦ 


„ ijlaucum, 


Apple blossom 
rose 


6 ft. 


V 


Sikkim. Leaves aro- 
matic. 




„ gr anile, - 


White - 


30 ft. 


iii, iv 


Sikkim. Known also 
as R. argenteun. 
One of the finest, 
but somewhat ten- 
der and a shy flow- 
erer. 


♦ 


„ kirsulum, 


Bright rose 


2 ft. 


v-vii 


Alpine Rose, very 
near R. ferrugineum, 
but better. 


* 


„ Hodgsoni, 


Pale purple or 
rose 


20 ft. 


V, vi 


Eastern Himalayas. 
Grand foliage. 


« 


„ Key si, • 


Red and yellow 


fi ft. 


vii 


Bhotan. Resembles 
R. cinnabarinum. 



219 



APPENDIX A 



Species. 


Colour of Flower. 


Height. 


Time of 
Flowering. 


Remarks. 


Rhododendron lacteum. 


White - 


— 


vi 


China. Hardy in 
Wicklow. Immense 
leaves. 


* „ lanatum, 


Primrose dotted 
red 


15 ft. 


vi 


Sikkim. 


,, Maddeni, 


White - 


8 ft. 


vi, vii 


Sikkim. 


* „ maximum, 


Pale rose dot 
ted yellow, 
red or brown 


20 ft. 


vii 


North America. 
Named maximum 
before Sir J. 
Hooker discovered 
the more lofty Sik- 
kim species. 


* „ Mvewii, 


Dark lilac 


15-20 ft. 


V 


Sikkim. Fine foliage: 
very hardy. 


* „ parvifolium, - 


Pale rose 


2-3 ft. 


iv, V 


China. Quite hardy. 


* „ racemosum, ■ 


Pale pink 


Dwarf 


iv, V 


Western China. 
Quite hardy. 


* „ Rhodora, 


Rosy 


4 ft. 


iii 


North America. 
Quite hardy : de- 
ciduous. 


* „ Roylei, - 


Purplish red - 


8 ft. 


V, vi 


Sikkim. 


* ,, Smirnom, 


Rose 


6 ft. 


iv, V 


Caucasus. Quite 
hardy. Fine foliage. 


* „ Thonisoni, 


Blood red 


10 ft. 


V, vi 


Sikkim. One of the 
best. 


„ Wiijhti, - 


Yellow, spotted 
crimson 


12 ft. 


vi 


Sikkim. 



220 



APPENDIX A 



Of the common hybrid rhododendrons it is not necessary to 
give a selection : everyone may choose for himself at the 
annual shows. Many of them are marvellous productions, but 
even the best of them are deficient in the appearance of race 
which distinguishes the natural species. They are wanting, 
also, in the subtle harmony between flower and foliage which 
is such a fine feature in the wild rhododendrons. But these 
defects are not present in the following hybrids which are 
scarcely, if at ail, inferior in these respects to the true species. 



Species. 


Colour of Flower. 


Height. 


Time of 
Flowering. 


Remarks. 


Rhododendron 










AUaclarense, - 


Bright red 


20 ft. 


iv 


R. mtawbiense x ponti- 
cum. 


„ Ascot Brilliant, 


Scarlet - 




V 


— 


„ Beauty of Tre- 
mough, 


Rose 


— 


— 


Raised by Mr. Gill, 
Tremough, Corn- 
wall. 


,, Broughtoni, ■ 


Deep rose 


20 ft. 


V, vi 


An arboreum hybrid. 
Immense truss and 
fine foliage. 


„ GeorgeHardy, 


Rose 


1.5 ft. 


V, vi 


— 


„ Gill's Triumph, 


Rose 




iv, V 


A lovely flower, 
larger than Pink 
Pearl, but not so 
hardy. 


„ Gloria Pen- 


Rose 


_ 


iv, V 


Do., do. 


jerrick. 










„ Harrisi, 


Deep rose 




iii 


R. arboreum x Thom- 
soni. 



221 



APPENDIX A 



Kewarks. 


Colour of Flower. 


Height. 


Time of 
Flowering. 


Species. 


Rhododendron 
Kewense, 


IiOSe 


12 ft. 


iv, V 


B. AucMandi x Hcok- 
eri. 


„ Luscomlei, 


Eose 


— 


iv 


R. Fortunei x Thom- 
soni. 


„ Manglesi, 


White, purple 
spotted 


— 


- 


R. AucMandi x album 
elegans. 


,, Mrs. Stirling, 


Blush 


— 


V, vi 


- 


,, Nohkanum, - 


Carmine, pale 
pink or white 


16 ft. 


i-iv 


R. arboreum x caucasi- 
cum. 


„ Pink Pearl, - 


Rose 




vi 


Of Audiandi type. 
Eaised originally by 
the late Peter Law- 
son of Edinburgh. 


„ prcecox, - 


Mauve - 


8 ft. 


ii, iii 


R. ciliatum x datiri 
cum. 


„ Sappho, 


White, with 
dark, almost 
black, throat 




V, vi 


A very showy variety. 


,, Shilsoni, 


Bright crimson 


12 ft. 


iv 


R. barbatum x Thom- 
soni. 


„ Smithianum, - 


Yellow - 




vi 


A very fine variety. 



222 



APPENDIX B 

The following is a list, far from exhaustive, of shrubs, other 
than rhododendrons, reputed more or less tender in the London 
and Midland districts, which have proved quite hardy in many 
parts of Scotland, especially in the West. Discretion should be 
exercised in the time and mode of planting. It is not advisable 
to plant such things in the open between the end of August 
and the beginning of May. Protection should be given during 
the first winter by a circle of wire netting loosely filled with 
dry bracken. Rough wind is far more to be dreaded than 
cold. Those species of which I have not personal experience 
are marked t. 



Name. 


Colour. 


Height. 


Season 
of Flower. 


Bemarks. 


Abelia floribunda, 


Rose purple - 


3 ft. 


iv 


Caprifoliacem. A 
Mexican shrub. Re- 
quires a wall in 
most districts. 


Acacia dealbata, 


Yellow - 


20 ft. 


iii, iv 


Mimosece. Requires 
protection till estab- 
lished and shelter 
from wind at all 
times. Was killed to 
the ground by April 
frost in 1908 after 
growing 16 ft. high. 


Akebiu quinata, 


Dark brownish 
purple 


10 ft. 


V, vi 


Berberidece. A 
climber : China : 
flowers fragrant. 


Aralia Sieboldii 
{Fatsia japonica), 


White - 


10 ft. 


viii 


Aralia;. Stands mod- 
erate shade. 


Azara microphylla, ■ 


Yellow - 


18 ft. 


ii, iii 


Bixinem. Very fra- 
grant. 



223 



APPENDIX B 



Name. 


Colour. 


Height. 


Season 
of Flower. 


Remarks. 


Berberidopsis cor alii na, 


Carmine - 


12 ft. 


vi-viii 


BerberidecB. From 
Chili. Requires wall. 


Buddleia Colvillei, 


Rose 


8 ft. 


vi, vii 


Sikkim. Hasflowered 
freely in the open 
border at Edinburgh 
Botanic Gardens. 


,, glohosa, 


Orange - 


15 ft. 


v-vi 


LogamacicB. FromChili. 


„ variabilis mag- 
nijica, 


Purple - 


15 ft. 


vi, viii 


China. A very 
superior variety of 
the species. 


Callistemon coccinea, - 


Carmine - 


5 ft. 


V, vi 


The bottle brush 
plant. Hardy in 
the S.W. Flowers 
annually on a wall 
with the protection 
of a mat in winter. 


Camellia japonica, 


Red, rose or 
white 


12 ft. 


iv, V 


Ternstrcemiacea. Best 
on a wall, sheltered 
from wind. 


Ca/rpenteria calif ornica, 


White, yellow 
centres 


10 ft. 


vi, vii 


Saxifragacece. Flowers 
freely on a wall as 
far north as Inver- 
nesshire. 


Chionanthus virginicus. 


White - 


15 ft. 


vi, vii 


Oleacem. "The Fringe 
Tree." Perfectly 
hardy as a standard 
in the west. 


Chm/sia ternata. 


White - 


10 ft. 


V, vi 


Ruta^xm. From Mexi- 
co. Stands any 
amount of frost in 
the open, if sheltered 
from cutting winds. 


Clethra acuminata, 


White - 


10-15 ft. 


viii-x 


Ericacece. Carolina. 


„ alnifolia, 


White - 


4-5 ft. 


viii-x 


N. America. Both 
species are very fra- 
grant, C. acuminata 
being the better one. 



224 



APPENDIX B 



Name. 


Colour. 


Height. 


Season 
of Flower. 


Remarka. 


Clianthus puniceus, - 


Eosy scarlet - 


Climber 


V 


Papilionacece. On a 
south wall. 


Cordylim aiisiralis, - 


White - 


20 ft. 


V, vi 


Liliacece.. Individual 
plants vary much 
in hardiness. The 
old leaves should 
not be cut off. 


Coronilla ghuca, 


Yellow - 


4-5 ft. 


vi-ix 


PapilionacecB. Quite 
hardy in E. Lothian. 


Desfontainea spinosa, - 


Scarlet and yel- 
low 


4-5 ft. 


vii-viii 


Loganacice. Like so 
manyChilian plants, 
this revels in the 
humid atmosphere 
of the west, but was 
severely cut by 
spring frost in 1 908. 


Eccremocarpus scaber, 


Reddish orange 


Climber 


vi-viii 


Bignonaceci. Chili. 


t Embothrium coccin- 
eum, 


Scarlet - 


20 ft. 


vi 


Proteacem. I have not 
seen this fine shrub 
lowering in Scot- 
land ; but as it 
succeeds splendidly 
in Ireland it ought 
to do so on the 
west coast. 


Erica arbor ea, - 


Rose or white - 


10 ft. 


iv, V 


— 


„ lusitanka, 


White - 


10 ft. 


iv, V 


Ericacem. 


Escdbniaexoniensis, ■ 


White - 


15 ft. 


vii, viii 


— 


„ macrantha, 


Rose 


15 ft. 


vi, vii 


Saxifragacem. Chili. 
The Escallonias are 
perfectly hardy in 
the westof Scotland, 
Perhaps the hand- 
somest is E. Lang- 
leyense, a hybrid. 



2 E 



225 



APPENDIX B 



Name. 


Colour. 


Height. 


Season 
of Flower. 


Kemarks. 


Escallonia ruh'a, 


Red 


15 ft. 


vii 




Eucryphia cordifolia, - 


White, flushed 
rose 


20 ft. 


viii, ix 


Eucryphinxece. Chili. 
This and the follow- 
ing species, which 
succumb to the win- 
ter at Kew, have re- 
sisted 22 degrees of 
frost in my garden. 


„ pinnatifolia, 


White - 


1.5 ft. 


vii, viii 


— 


Fahiana imhricata, 


White - 


3-4 ft. 


V 


Solanacecr. Chili. I 
have failed to keep 
this curious shrub, 
but have seen it 
growing luxuriantly 
350 feet above the 
sea in Ayrshire. 


Fuchsia glohosa, 


Crimson and 
purple 


15 ft. 


vi-ix 


Unagracece.. Mexico. 
This species and its 
offspring Rkartoni 
arethehardiest; but 
many other species 
succeed on a brick 
wall, or in an open 
border asherbaceous 
growth. Amongthe 
best are F. conica 
and serrulata. 


Garrya ellyptica, 


Grey-green cat- 
kins 


12 ft. 


xii, i, ii 


Comacece. California. 
Requires a wall in 
cold districts : but 
grows freely in the 
open in E. Lothian. 


Hydrangea hortensia, • 


White, blue or 
rose 


3-4 ft. 


viii, ix 


Saxifragacece. China. 
All species of Hyd- 
rangea luxuriate 
near the sea, shel- 
tered from the 
blast. 



226 



APPENDIX B 



Name. 


Colour. 


Height. 


Season 
of Flower. 


Remarks. 


Illicium religiosum, - 


Ivory 


4 ft. 


iv, V 


MagnoUacece. Japan. 
Uninjured by 22 
degrees of frost in 
1907. 


Indigo/em Gerardiana, 


Rose 


5 ft. 


viii, ix 


Papilionacece. Hima- 
layas. 


MvMsia decvrrens, 


Bright orange 


Climber 


vi, vii 


Compositw. A brilli- 
ant climber, quite 
hardy, east and 
•west. Chili. 


Myrtus communis, 


White - 


10 ft. 


viii, ix 


Myrtacece. S. Europe. 
Except at sea level 
on the west coast 
myrtle requires the 
shelter of a wall. 


„ {Eugenia) 

apiculata, 


White - 


10 ft. 


vii, viii 


Quite hardy in the 
open. 


Nandina domestica, - 


White - 


5-6 ft. 


viii, ix 


Berheridacece. Pretty 
foliage, taking fine 
autumnal tints. 
China. 


Notospartium Carmich- 
alicB, 


Rosy lilac 


20 ft. 


vii, viii 


PapilonacecB. New 
Zealand. 


Olearia Eaasti, - 


White - 


10 ft. 


viii, ix 


Compositce. New Zea- 
land. There arenumer- 
ous species all desir- 
able, especially 0. 
Gunni, macrodonta, 
nitida, nummtUari/olia 
and inaignis. Except 
0. Uaasli, these and 
the following species 
are liable to be killed 
to the ground in inland 
districts. 


Oxydendrm {Andro- 
meda) arborca, 


White - 


40 ft. 


vi, vii 


Ericacem. Besides its 
fine blossoms this 
plant takes vivid 
autumnal tints. 



227 



APPENDIX B 



Name. 


Colour. 


Height. 


Season 
of Flower. 


RemarkB. 


Ozothamnus rosmarini- 
folius, 


White - 


10 ft. 


vii, viii 


Composifce.. Austral- 
asia. 


Parrotia persica, 


Crimson sta- 
mens, no petals 


10 ft. 


ii 


Harnamelideoe. Cen- 
tral Asia. Grows 
freely as a standard 
without suffering 
from frost, but I 
have not seen it 
flower. Fine autumn 
foliage. 


Pieris {Andromeda) 
formosa, 


White - 


6 ft. 


vi, vii 


Ericacece. 


Piptanthus nepalensis,- 


Yellow - 


10 ft. 


V 


Pa^nlionacece. Nepaul. 
In the west does 
not require a wall. 


Bhus cotinoides, 


Reddish - 


20 ft. 


vi, vii 


Anacardiacece. 
Splendid leaf colour 
in autumn. North 
America. 


Sophora (Edwardsia) 
tetraptera, 


Yellow - 


8 ft. 


V 


Papilionacece. New 
Zealand. Flowers 
best on asunny wall. 


Trachycarpus (Chamce- 
rops) eoxelsus, 


Yellow - 


20 ft. 


V, vi 


Palmce. A perfectly 
hardy palm, only 
requiring shelter 
from wind. The 
old leaves should 
not be cut off". 


Tricuspidaria 
lanceolata, 


Crimson - 


10 ft. 


iv 


- 


Vaccinium 

corymbosum, 


Rosy white 


10 ft. 


V, vi 


Facciniacece.. Beauti- 
ful alike in flower 
and foliage. North 
America. 


Zenohia {Andromeda) 
speciosa pulverulenta, 


Pearly - 


4 ft, 


vi, vii 


Ericacece. Thrives 
best among decay- 
ing logs. 



228 



APPENDIX C 

Decorative shrubs, herbs, and bulbs, suitable for an all-British 
border. Although the plants in this list are all truly indigenous 
to the United Kingdom, some of them are so local in distribu- 
tion or have become so rare that they must be obtained through 
the trade. Such plants are marked with an asterisk (*). The 
months of flowering are indicated by Roman numerals. 

Ranunculus Family. Ranunculacece. 



English Names. 



Botanical 
Name. 



Colour. 


Height. 


Time of 
Flowering 


Purplish 


6 in. 


vii, viii 


Yellowish or 


1-4 ft. 


vi, vii 


pale purple 






Yellow 


2-4 ft. 


vii, viii 


Purple 


6-12 in. 


v, vi 


White, with 
rosy and 


4-8 in. 


iv, V 


lavender 






varieties 






Scarlet with 


1 ft. 


v-ix 


dark spot 






Bright yel- 
low 


3 ft. 


vii-ix 



Alpine Meadow 
Eue 



Lesser Meadow 
Eue 



Meadow Rue 
Fen Rue 

Pasque Flower 



Wood Anemone"! 
Wind Flower J 



Rose-a-ruby 
Red Morocco 
Pheasant's Eye 
Red Maidweed 

GreaterSpearwort 



Thalictrum 

alpinum 

Thalictrum 

minus 



Thalictrum 

flamim 

Anemone 

Pulsatilla 

Anemone 

nemorosa 



Adonis 

autumnalis 



Ranunculus 

lingua 



Requires peat. 
Foliage pretty, 
like Adiantum. 

Foliage resembling 
maidenhair, and 
more durable in 
water. 

Likes a moist soil. 



Deep soil, with 
chalk or lime. 

The most beautiful 
variety is called 
R()hinsoniana,oi-A 
charming laven- 
der hue with 
gold stamens. 

An annual ; re- 
quire.s a suuuy 
exposure. 



A very handsome 
buttercup for 
waterside or moist 
border. 



229 



APPENDIX C 



EDgliBh Names. 



Buttercup 
Crowfoot 
St. Antony's 
f{aj)e 



Buttercup 
Crowfoot 
Crazy 
Gold Knots 

Marsh Marigold^ 
Kini; Cups 
Brave Bassinets 
Boots 

Meadow Bouts 
Mare Blobs 

Globe Flower 
Troll Flower 
Lucken Gowan 



Bear's Foot 

Oxheel 

Setterwort 

*Columbine \ 
Culverwort / 



Larkspur \ 

Knight's Spui's J 



♦Monkshood "\ 

Wolfsbane |. 

Friar's Cap j 

Aconite ; 

Baneberry "1 

Herb V 

Christopher J 



*Pieony 



Botanical 
Name. 



Ranunculus 
bulbosiis 
fl. pi. 



Rammculus 
acris 
fl. pi. 

Caltha 

pahtstris 



Trollius 

earop(tus 



Hellehorus 

foetidus 



Aquilegia 

vulgaris 



Delphinium 

(ijacia 

Aconitum 

napellus 



Actcea spicata 



PceoHia 

officinalis 



Colour. 


Height. 


Time of 
Flowering 


Bright yel- 
low 


1 ft. 


vi-ix 


Bright yel- 
low 


1-2 ft. 


vi-ix 


Bright yel- 
low 


1 ft. 


iii-vi 


Clear, pale 
yellow 


1-2 ft. 


vi-viii 


Pale green 


4 ft. 


i-iii 


Blue 


1-3 ft. 


v-vii 


Bright blue 


1-lA ft. 


vi, vii 


Dark blue 


2-3 ft. 


vi 


White 


1-2 ft. 


V, vi 


Crimson 


1-3 ft. 


V, vi 



Only the double 
flowered forms of 
this and the fol- 
io w ing species are 
admissible. 



There are double 
flowering forms, 
iutna plena and 
monstrusa plena. 
For waterside or 
moist border. 

Better than any 
exotic species. 
Likes a moist 
border. 

Fine bold foliage, 
a good winter 
platit. Likes lime 

There are many 
varieties, single 
and double, of 
various colours. 

An annual, with 
pink and white 
varieties. 

Easily naturalised 
in open woods. 



Has black, poison- 
ous berries, 
whence the name 
Baneberry. 

OnlyfoundonSteep 
Holme Island 
in the Severn, 
whence it has 
been nearly ex- 
tirpated. 



230 



APPENDIX C 

Barberry Family. Berberidece. 



English Names. 



Barberry 
Pipperidge 



Botanical 
Name. 



Berberis 

vulgaris 



Pale yellow 



Height. 



16 ft. 



Time of 
Flowering 



There are 43 varie- 
tie.s enumerated 
iu the Kew hand 
Iwt. 



Waterlily Family. Nymphoeacem. 



Water Lily 



Yellow Water-i 

Lily i 

Brandy-bottle j 

Candock J 



Nymphcea 



alba 



Xuphar 



luteum 



White 



Yellow 



Floating 



Floating 



Would be more 
highly esteemed 
if we had not the 
white water lily. 





Poppy Family. Papaveracece. 




Corn Poppy \ 


Papaver rhceas 


Scarlet. 


1-H ft. 


vi-viii 


There are many 


Cop Rose 










varieties an<i 


Headwarke > 










sports of this 


Joan Silverpin 










native poppy, the 


Cheese Bouts j 










most beautiful 
being those 
known as ".Shir- 
ley " poppies. 


Longheaded 


Papaver 


Scarlet 


1 ft. 


vi-viii 


Very near the last 


Poppy 


dubium 








species. 


Rough Poppy 


Papaver 

hybridum 


Red 


H ft. 


vi-viii 


Requires poor soil : 
chalk. 


Pale Poppy 


Papaver 

argemone 


Pale red 


ein.-lft. 


vi-viii 


All our true poppies 
are annuals. 


Welsh Poppy 


Meconopsis 

cambrica 


Yellow 


1-2 ft. 


v-ix 


There is a double 
variety, and a 
beautiful orange 
one, this and a 
variety of the 
next species being 
the only instance 
of this colour in 
British wild 
flowers. This 
plant is a true 
perennial. 



231 



APPENDIX C 



English Names. 


Botanical 
Name. 


Colour. 


Height. 


Time of 
Flowering 


Remarks. 


Horn Poppy 


Glaucium 

luteum 


Clear yellow 


2-3 ft 


vi-viii 


A biennial. Plant 
in pure .sand and 
grit. There is a 
beautiful orange 
variety with a 
dark spot. 



FuMiTARY Family. Fumariacece. 



Yellow Corydal 



Corydalit lutea Yellow 



1 ft. v-viii Good on old walls. 



Wallflower Family. CrudfercB. 



Stock "I 

Stock-gilliflower / 



Wallflower ] 

Chevisaunce \ 

Wild Cheir ) 

Winter Cress 



Lady's Smock 
Cuckoo Flower 
Spinks 

Sweet Alison 
Whitlow Grass 
Candytuft 



Matthiola 

iticana 



Cheirantkiis 

cheiri 



Barharea 
mlgaris fl. pi. 

Cardamine 
pralentis fl . pi. 

A lyssum 

maritimum 

Draba azoides 
Iherii amara 



Violet 



Yellow to 
red 



Yellow 
Pale lilac 

White 



Bright yel- 
low 

White 



1-2 ft. 


v-viii 


1-U ft. 


ii-v 


1-2 ft. 


vi-ix 


1ft. 


iv, V 


4-10 in. 


vi-ix 


2, 3 in. 


iii 


6-9 in. 


vi, vii 



The parent of the 
Brorupton and 
Queen Stocks. 

Parent of innumer- 
able varieties. 



Thedouble flowered 
variety is showy. 

The double variety 
is worth a place 
in a moist border. 

Valuable for its 
fragrance. 

A pretty alpine. 



An annual. 



Rock Rose Family. Cistinece. 



Spotted Rock 
Rose 

Rock Rose 


Helianthemum 
guttaium 

Helianthemum 
vulgare 


Yellow,with 
red spot 

Clear yellow 


6-12 in. 
3-10 in. 


vi-viii 
v-viii 


Au annual. 

Parent of the gar- 
den rock-roses, 
single,double,and 
of many colours. 



232 



APPENDIX C 

Violet Family. Violacem. 



English Names. 


Botanical 
Name. 


Colour. 


Height. 


Time of 
Flowering 


Reinarke. 


Violet 


Viola odorata 


Violet,white, 
or inter- 
mediate 


3-5 in. 


iii-v 




Dog Violet 


Viola canina 


Lavender, 
bluish lilac, 
or white 


3-5 in. 


iii-v 


Makes a beautiful 
mass of colour 
when grown by 
itself in rather 
poor soil. 


Pansy ^ 


Viola tricolor 


Purple,blue, 


3-9 in. 


v-ix 


All the show and 


Herb Trinity 




•white, yel- 






fancy varieties of 


Heartsease 




low or 






Pansy can be 


Love-in-idleness 




mixed 






claimedasderived 


Kiss Me 










from this British 


Fancy 










wildflower. 


Flamy 












Three Faces 












under a Hood J 













Pink Family. Caryophyllarece. 



*Maiden Pink 



♦Cheddar Pink 



Soapwort 1 

Bouncing Bet ( 

Bruise-wort j 

Fuller's Herb 1 

♦Cushion Pink \ 
Moss Campion / 

Bladder Cam- , 

pion 
Spatling Poppy i- 
Witches' 

Thimble ) 

Nottingham 

Catchfly 

Night Catchfly 



2f 



Dianthus 

deltoides 



Dianlhus 



Saponaria 

officinalis 



Silene acaulis 
Silene inflata 

Silene nutans 



Silene 



noctiflora 



Bright rose 
or white 


6-9 in. 


vi-ix 


Pink 


3-6 in. 


vi, vii 


Lilac or 

white 


1-2 ft. 


viii, ix 


Rose, crim- 
son or white 


2 in. 


vi, vii 


White 


6in.-lft. 


vi-viii 


"White or 
pink 


2-3 ft. 


v-vii 


Rose inside, 
yellow out- 
side 


1-2 ft. 


vi, vii 



Lime and sand. 



There is a double 
variety. 



wall garden. 

Tlie glaucous mari- 
time form is the 
best. 



Flowers at night : 
fragrant. 



•233 



APPENDIX C 



English Names. 


Botanical ! r.„i„,„ 
Name. | <^°'°"^- 


Height. 


Time of 
Flowering 


Remarks. 


White Campion 


Lychnis White 
vespertina 


1-3 ft. 


V, viii 




Kose Campion 


Lychnis [ Rose 
diurna 


1-3 ft. 


iv, ix 


The double form 
■ is best. 


Ragged Robin 


Lychnis 

flos-cMCidi 


Rose 


1-2 ft. 


V, vi 




♦German Catchfly 


Lychnis 

viscaria 


Red- purple 


10-18in. 


vi 


There are several 
varieties, includ- 
ing a double one. 


♦Alpine Catchfly 


Lychnis alpina 


Rose 


4-6 in. 


vi 




Vernal Sandwort 


Arenaria 

verna 


White 


1-3 in. 


vi 




Sea Purslane 

Fringed Sand- 
wort 


Arenaria 

peploides 

Arenaria 

ciliata 


White 
White 


3-4 in. 
2-3 in. 


v-viii 
vi, vii 


For wall, garden, 
or rockwork 


Alpine Chiek- 
weed 


Cerastiwn 

cdpinum 


White 


2-4 in. 


vi, vii 


' 



Tamarisk Family. TamariscinecB. 



Tamarisk 



Tamarix 

gallica 



Pink 



6-12 ft. 



Evergreen shrub. 



St. John's Wokt Family. Eypericinece. 



Tutsan \ 

Park Leaves ] 
Sweet Amber ) 

St. John's Wort 



Hypericum 
aiulroscemum 



Hypericum 
perforatum 



Yellow 



Yellow 



2-3 ft. 



2-3 ft. 



234 



APPENDIX C 

Flax Family. Linacece. 



English Names. 


Botanical 
Name. 


Colour. 


Height. 


Time of 
Flowering 


Remarks. 


Pale Flax 


Linuin 
angustifoUum 


Pale blue 


1-2 ft. 


v-ix 


> Perennials. 


Perennial Flax 


Linum 

perenne 


Bright 
blue, pink 
or white 


12-18 in. 


vi, vii 


J 


Flax \ 
Line J 


Linum 
usitatissimum 


Blue 


lift. 


vi, vii 


An annual. 



Mallow Family. Malvacew. 



Marsh Mallow \ 
Hock Herb J 


Althcea 

officinalis 


Blush 


3-4 ft. 


vi, vii 


Moist soil. 


Musk Mallow 


Malva 

mosckata 


Rose or 
white 


2-3 ft. 


vii, viii 




Tree Mallow \ 
Velvet Leaf / 


Lavatera 

arhorea 


Purple 


6-10 ft. 


viii-x 





Geranium Family. Gercmiacece. 



Bloody Cranes- 
bill 



Meadow Cranes- 
bill 



Wood Cranesbill 



Geranium 
sanguineum 

Geranivirt 

pratense 

Geranium 

sylvestre 



Crimson 1 ft. 



Violet blue 2-3 ft. 



Violet blue 2 ft. 



The rose-coloured 
variety lancastri- 
ense is best. 

There are white 
and double blue 
varieties. 

There is a white 
variety. 



Spindle Family. Celastrinece. 



Spindle Tree 
Prick-wood 
Gad-rise 
Louse-berry 



Euonymus 

europceus 



Green 



5-20 ft. 



235 



Valuable for its 
beautiful rose- 
coloured berries. 
There is a variety 
with white 
berries. 



APPENDIX C 

Leguminous Family. Leguminosm. 



English Names. 


Botanical 
Name. 


Colour. 


Height. 


Time of 
Flowering 


Remarks. 


F\irze 1 
Whin V 
Gorse J 


UUx europoeus 


Yellow 


3-10 ft. 


iv, V 


There is a fine 
double - flowered 
variety. 


Dwarf Furze 


Ulex nanus 


Yellow 


2-3 ft. 


viii-x 




Greenweed 


Genista 

pilosa 


Yellow 


Pros- 
trate 


V, vi 




Dyer's Green- -i 

weed 1 

Woodwaxen j 

Base Broom J 


Genista 

tinctoria 


Yellow 


1-2 ft. 


vii-ix 




Broom 


Cytisus 

scoparius 


Yellow 


5-8 ft. 


V, vi 


There are many 
varieties, includ- 
ing A ndreanus, 
with reddish- 
brown standard. 


Lucern ' 
Sickle Medick 
Snail's Horn 


Medicago 

falcata 


Pale yellow 
or violet 


Pros- 
trate 


vi, vii 




Clover 


Trifolium 
incarnatum 


Crimson 


9-12 in. 


vi, vii 


An annual. 


BirdsfootTrefoil] 
Butterjags 
Crow-toes J 


Lotus 

eorniculatvs 


Yellow 


Pros- 
trate 


v-ix 


Makes a fine dis- 
play on wall gar- 
den. There is a 
double - flowered 
variety. 


Woundwort -v 
Kidney Vetch V 
Lambs' Toe J 


Anthyllis 

mdneraria 


Yellow, 
white,pink 
or red 


6-18 in. 


vi-viii 


A tine variety, Dil- 
leni, has cream- 
coloured flowers 
with red tips. 


Purple Milk- 
vetch 


Astragalus 
hypoglottis 


Purple 


3 in. 


V, vi 


There is a white 
flowered variety. 


♦Alpine Milk- 
vetch 


Astragalus 

alpinus 


Purple 


Pros- 
trate 


vi 


There is a white 
flowered variety. 


Sweet Milk- vetch 


Astragalus 
glyciphyllus 


Sulphur 


Pros- 
trate 


vi 




•Mountain Vetch 


Oxytropis 

campestris 


White and 
purple • 


3-6 in. 


vii 





236 



APPENDIX C 



English Names. 



Botanical 
Name. 



Colour. 



Height. 



Time of 
Flowering 



* Purple Moun- 
taiD Vetch 

Sainfoin 
French Grass 
Cock's Comb 

Tufted "Vetch 

Wood Vetch 



Oxytropis 

uralensis 

Onohrychia 

aativa 



Vicia craeca 
Vicia sylvatica 



Purple 
Bright rose 

Purple 

White and 
blue 



3-6 in. 
2-3 ft. 



Climber 
Climber 



Vl-Vlll 

vi, vii 



Rose Family. Bosacece. 



Dwarf Cherry 

Mazzards 

Merry 



Wild Cherry \ 

Gean / 

Birdcherry \ 

Hackberry / 



Willow Spiraea 

Meadow Sweet "^ 
Quet-n of the 

Meadows ] 

Meadwort I 

Bridewort ) 

Dropwort 
Mountain Avens 



Cloudberry "\ 

Noops / 



Blackberry 
Black Boyds 
Bumblekite 
Scaldberry 



Prunus cerasiis 



Pruniis avium 
Pruims 



padus 



Spircea 

salicifolia 



Spircea 



ulmaria 



Spiroea 

filipendula 

Dryas 

octopetala 

Rubus 

chamoemorui 



Rubus 

fruticosus 



White 

White 
White 

Pink 

Cream 

White 
White 
White 



White and 
pink 



15-20 ft. 


iv, V 


20-60 ft. 


iv, V 


20-3U ft. 


V 


3-5 ft. 


vii, viii 


2-4 ft. 


vi-viii 


2-3 ft. 


vi, vii 


Pros- 


V, vi 


trate 




4-6 in. 


vi, vii 


Trailer 


vi-ix 



There are many 
beautiful varie- 
ties, including a 
double white. 

Do. do. 



Many varieties, but 
none better than 
the type. 

There are white and 
other varieties. 

There is a double 
variety. 



There is a fine 
double form. 



Likes lime. 



Peat and sand : 
moist. Has sweet 
yellow fruit. 

The double white 
and double pink 
forms are very 
ornamental. 



237 



APPENDIX C 



English Names. 



Botauical 

Name. 



Height. 


Time of 
Flowering 


10 in. 


vi, vii 


Creep- 
ing 


vi-ix 


2-3 ft. 


vi-viii 


1-2 ft. 


vi-viii 


1-3 ft. 


V, vi 


3-6 ft. 


vi 


6-15 ft. 


vi, vii 


6-15 ft. 


vi, vii 


Trailing 


vi-viii 


3-4 ft 


v, vi 



Knotberry 



SilverweeJ 
Goose Tansy 



* Shrubby 
Cinquefoil 

Kock Cinquefoil 

Burnet Rose 1 
Scots Kose J 

Sweetbriar ^ 

Eglantine j 

Dog Rose 



Downy Rose 

Field Rose 
*Cotoneaster 



Rubus 



sa.vatilis 



Potentilla 

anserina 



Potentilla 

fnUicosa 

Potentilla 

rupestris 
Rosa 
pimpinelUfolia 

Rosa 

ruhiginosa 

Rosa canina 
Rosa inllosa 

Rosa arvensis 

Cotoneasier 

vulgaris 



Dull white 



Yellow 



Yellow 



"White 

Cream or 
pink 

Bright rose 



Rose, pink, 
or white 

White or 
pale pink 

White 

White 



Only useful for 
rock-garden on 
account of its car- 
mine fruit. 

Were it not such 
a common weed 
this would be 
reckoned a lovely 
plant. 



Many cultivated 
varieties. 



I There are many 
( varieties. 



Easily naturalised, 
but only found 
wild in Britain 
on Great Orme's 
Head. 



Evening Primrose Family. Onagracece. 



Rose Bay -i 

French Willow 
Willow Herb J 

Codlins & Cream 



EveningPrimrose 



Epilobium 
angtistifolium 



Epilobium 

hirsutum 

Onothera 

biennis 



Deep rose 


4-6 ft. 


vii, viii 


Deep rose 


4-6 ft. 


vii, viii 


Pale yellow 


2-4 ft. 


vii-ix 



Really an Ameri- 
can herb, but now 
thoroughly estab- 
lished among our 
native flora. The 
variety Lanxarck- 
iana is the best. 



238 



APPENDIX C 

Loosestrife Family. Lythraceoe. 



English Xames. 


Botanical 


Colour. 


Height. 


Time of 
Flowering 


Remarks. 


Purple Loosestrife 


Lythrum 

salicaria 


Reddish 
purple 


2-5 ft. 


vii, viii 


The varieties 
roseum and super- 
hum are very niie. 



Stonecrop Family. CrassvIacecB. 



Roseroot 
Midsummer 
Men 

Orpine 
Livelon" 



Wall-pepper 
Bird's-bread 
Pricket 
Jack - of 
buttery 
Stonecrop 



the- 1 



White Stonecrop 



Th ick 1 eaved 
Stonecrop 

Worm grass 



Rock Stonecrop 



Stonor \ 

Trip-madam / 

Houseleek "j 

Ayegreen I 

Youbarb [• 

Jupiter's Beard I 

Bullock's Eye j 



Sedum 

rhodiola 

Sedum 

telepkmm 

Sedum acre 



Sedum 

anglicum 



Sedum 
dasyphyllum 

Sedum album 



Sedum 



rupestre 

Sedum 

reflexum 

Senipervivum 
tectorum 



Dull yellow 
or purplish 


6-8 in. 


Rose 


1-U ft. 


Bright yel- 
low 


2-3 in. 


White and 


2-3 in. 


rose 




White and 


2-3 in. 


rose 




White 


4-6 in. 


Yellow 


6-10 in. 


Yellow 


8-10 in. 


Red or dull 
purple 


9-12 in. 



Tlie best varieties 
of this plant 
should be chosen. 



Absurdly called 
English stone- 
crop ; though 
common in Ire- 
land and west 
Scotland, it 
scarcely is found 
in England. 



There are several 
varieties. 



vi-vTii There are some 
good varieties. 



The variety rusti- 
cum has broad 
bluish leaves. 



239 



APPENDIX C 

Saxifrage Family. Snxifragacece. 



Eiiglixh NamcH. 


Botanical 
Nftmc. 


Colour. 


Height. 


Time of 
Flowering 


Remarks. 


♦Purple Thirl- 
Htaiie 


Saxifraga 
oppositifolia 


Bright red- 
dish purple 


6 in. 


iii-v 


There are several 
fine varieties, but 
it i.s a mistake to 
grow the white- 
flowered one. 


Yellow TliirlntAiie 


Saxifrnga 

aizoides 


Yellow 




G in. 


vi, vii 


In damp, gritty 
loam. 


Marsli Thirlstane 


Saxifraga 

hircuhcs 


Yellow 




6 in. 


vii-viii 


Moist ground. 


Eve's (Hishion "1 
Dovedale Moss / 


Sax-ifraga 

liypnoides 


White 




6-12 in. 


v-vii 




* Tufted Thirl- 
stane 


Saxifraga 

caspitosa 


White 




3 in. 


v-viii 




Meadow Saxi- 
frage 
First of May J 


Saxifraga 

granulata 


White 




6-12 in. 


iv, V 


The double form is 
very fine. 


♦Alpine Thirl- 
stane 


Saxifraga 

nivalia 


White 




3-G ill. 


vii, viii 




London Pride 'i 
None-80-pretty 
St. Patrick's 

Cabbage 
Prattling- Par- 

nel J 


Saxifraga 

umhrosa 


White, 
spots 


red 


8-12 in. 


vi 




Kidney Saxifrage 


Saxifraga 

geum 


White, 
spots 


red 


8-12 in. 


vi 


Not 80 good as the 
last. 


Grassof PariiaasuB 


Pamassia 

palnstri.i 


White 




10-12 in. 


vi 


In moist ground. 



Umbkllate Family. UmielUferce. 



Astrantia 
Sea Holly 


Astrantia 

major 

En/ngium 
maritimum 


Pink 

Light blue 


1-3 ft. 

1 ft. 


vi, vii 

vii-ix 


The variety with 
greyish - white 
flowers should be 
avoided. 

Plant in pure sand. 



240 



APPENDIX C 

Ivy Family. Araliaace. 



.^ ,■ 1 XT Hotatiicnl 
EugliBli N»me8. Name 


Colour. 


Height. 


Time of 
Flowering 


Kcln»rl(K. 


Ivy Hedtra helix 


Greenish 
yellow 


Creeijer 


iz, X 


Innumerable 
varieties. 



MisTLBTOE Family. LomnthacecB. 



Mistletoe 


Vigiiim idbmn 


Green 


Piira«ite 


iii-v 


GrowB freely in tlie 
north if sown on 
poplar, apple, or 
hawthorn. 



CoRNKL Family. C'onuicea. 



Dwarf Cornel 



Cornut tuecica 



Purple with 
white bracts 



6 in. 


vii 



Bears fine scarlet 
fruit. Moist peat 
and grit. _ 





Honeysuckle Family. 


Caprifoliacea. 




Wayfaring Tree 


yjlmritum 

buitann 


White 


8-16 ft. 


V, vi 




Guelder Rose \ 
Water Elder \ 
Snowball Tree J 


Viburnnm 

opulus 


White 


6-15 ft. 


vi 


The sterile variety 
should be culti- 
vated. 


Woodbine 1 
Honeysuckle j 


lA)nicera 
periclymenum 


Red and 
yellow. 


Climber 


vi-viii 




♦Linnsea 


Linn(ea 

borealin 


Pale pink 


Pros- 
irate 


vi, vii 


Moist heat and 
sand, in partial 
shade. 





iMAuuEK Family. 


Rulmcece. 




Lady's Bedstraw-i 


Galium oerum 


Yellow 


lift. 


vi-ix 


Not usually reckon- 


Maid's Hair 1 










ed fit forj^ardens, 


Petty Mui;get j 










but beautiful and 


Cheese Rennet ) 










fragrant in a 
wall. 


Woodruff 


Atperula 

odorata 


White 


6-12 in. 


V-Vl 




Squinancy Wort 


Atperula 

cynanckica 


White 
streaked 
with blue. 


9-12 in. 


v-vi 





2g 



241 



APPENDIX C 

Valerian Family. Falerianece. 



English Namea. 


Botanical 
Name. 


Colour. 


Height. 


Time of 
Flowering 


Remarks. 


Red Valerian \ 
Pretty Betsy J 

Cat's Valerian ^ 
All Heal [ 
Setwal I 
Herb Bennet j 


Centranthus 

ruber 

Valei-iana 

officinalis 


Red or white 

Pale pink or 
white 


2-3 ft. 
3 ft. 


vi-ix 
vi-viii 





Teasel Family. Dipsacece. 



Bluecaps 
Devil's Bit 
Forbitten More 
Blue Scabious 



Scabiosa 



1-2 ft. 



Composite Family. Compositce. 



Hetup Agrimony 
*Alpine Fleabane 



Mountain Cud- 
weed 
Cat's Ear 

Goldilocks 



Golileurod 



Elecampane ^ 
Elfdock [ 

Horse -heal 
Scab-wort 

Daisy 
Bruisewort 
Herb Margaret 

Oxeye 

Moonwort 
Maudlinwort 



Eupatorium 
cannabimim 

Erigeron 

alpinus 

Onaphalium 

dioicum 



Linosyris 

vulgaris 

Solidago 

virgaurea 

Inula 

Helenium 



Bellis perennis 



Chrysanthe- 
mum 
leucanlhemum 



Reddish- 
purple 

Lilac, yellow 
centre 

Pink 



Yellow 
Yellow 
Yellow 



White, pink 
and crim- 



White with 
yellow cen- 
tre 



2-4 ft. 


vii 


9-12 in. 


vii, viii 


3-6 in. 


vi 


2 ft. 


viii, ix 


1-2 ft. 


vii-ix 


3-4 ft. 


vi, vii 


4-5 in. 


iii-xi 


2-3 ft. 


vi-viii 



There is a dwarf 
variety, cambrica. 



The numerous 
double forms are 
well known. 



242 



APPENDIX C 



English Names. 



Botanical 

Name. 



Height. |^-°f^ 



Corn Marigold "| 

Bigold 

Boodle 

Goldins 

Gools J 

Oxeve Camomile 



Sneezewort 
Goosetongiie 

Yarrow 

Milfoil 

Cotton Weed 
Sea Cudweed 

Tansy 



MUk Thistle 



Scots Thistle 
Cotton Thistle 



Cornflower 
Bluebottle 



Chryianthe- 
mum 

segetum 



Anthemii 

tinctoria 

Achillea 

ptarmica 

Achillea 
millefolium 

Diotia 



Tanacetum 

vulgare 

Carduui 

marianui 

Onoperdon 
acanthinm 

Centaurea 

cyanexis 



Yellow 

Yellow 

White 

White or 
rose 

Yellow 
Yellow 

Rose-purple 
Rose-purple 
Bright blue. 



U ft. vi-x 

2 ft. vii, viii 

1-2 ft. vi-ix 

1-2 ft. vi-ix 

8-10 in. viii, ix 

2 ft. 1 vii, viii 

1-4 ft. 
4-8 ft. 

2-3 ft. ; vi-ix 



An annual. 



There are some 
splendid varieties. 

There are fine 
double varieties. 



The variety cris- 
pum has beautiful 
foliage. 

A nnual or biennial. 



Annual or biennial. 
Inferior forms are 
rose and purple. 



Bellflower F.\JIIly. C'ampanulucece. 



Sheep's Bit 


Jagione 

montana 


Blue 


i-H ft. 


vi-ix 


Annual 




Rampion 


Phyteuma 

orbiculare 


Blue 


6-18 in. 


vii, viii 






Spiked Ramjiion 


PhyteMma 

spicatum 


Blue, white, 
or cream 


1-3 ft. 


vii 






Clustered Bell- 
flower 


Campanula 
glomerata 


Blue 


1-2 ft. 


vi, vii 






Giant Bellflower 


Campamda 

latifolia 


Blue or 
white 


3-6 ft. 


vii 


Likes shade 
woods. 


of 


2g2 




243 











APPENDIX C 



English Names. 



Nettle - leaved 
Bellflower. 

Creeping Bell- 
flower 

Earaps ) 

Coventry Rapes / 

Bluebell -v 

Harebell I 

Lady's Thimble J 

Ivy Bellflower 



Botanical 
Name. 



Campanula 
trachelhim 

Campanula 
rapunadoides 

Campanula 
rapuncuhia 

Campanula 
rotundifolia 



Campanula 
hederacea 



Blue 
Blue 



Blue 
white 

Sky blue 



Pale blue 



Height. 



•2-3 ft. 

2-4 ft. 

2-3 ft. 

1 ft. 

Creeping 



Time of 
Flowering 



There is a white 
variety and a dark 
blue one, Hoati. 

Moist ground. 



Heath Family. Gricacece. 



Bogberry 



Cowberry 

Brawl 

Flower 



?rry -i 

ins [ 

nw' Box J 



Strawberry Tree 
Cranberry 



*Black Bearberry 

Bearberry 
Mealberry 



Bearberry \ 



Moorwort -i 

Marsli Rosemary V 
Holy Rose i 



St. Daboec'sHeath 
*Blue Menziesia 



Vaccinium 
uliginosum 

Vaccinium 
Vitis-Idma 



Arbutus unedo 

Vaccinium 

oxycoccus 

Arctostaphylos 
alpina 

Arctostaphylos 
uva-ursi 

Andromeda 

polifolia 



ifemie-na 

polifolia 

Menziesia 

coTulea 



Pink 


Trailer 


V 


Pink 


Trailer 


vi 


White 


8-12 ft. 


ix 


Pink 


Creeping 


V 


White 


Pros- 
trate 


iv 


Pink 


Trailer 


iv 


Pink 


8-10 in. 


v-viii 


Purple or 
white 


1-2 ft. 


vi-ix 


bluish [)urple 


6-8 in. 


vi, vii 



Moist peat. 



Moist peat. 



Usually recom- 
mended for bog, 
but grows well in 
ordinary peat 
border. 



One of the rarest 
British plants. 



244 



APPENDIX C 



English Names. 


Botanical 

Name. 


Colour. 


Height. 


Time of 
Flowering 


Remarks. 


Heather -v 

Ling 

Grigg J 


Erica culgaris 


Rose or white 


1-3 ft. 


viii, ix 


There are a vast 
number of varie- 
ties, including a 
double lose. 


Bell Heath 


Erica cinerea 


Crimson 


6-12 in. 


vii-ix 


Many good varie- 
ties. 


Cross - leaved 
Heath 


Erica tetrali.i- 


Rose 


6-12 in. 


vii-ix 


Many good varie- 
ties. 


♦Dorset Heath 


Erica ciliaris 


Pale red 


6-12 in. 


vi-ix 




Mediterranean 
Heath 


Erica carnea 


Bright rose 


6-8 in. 


i-iv 


Should be clipped 
after flowering. 
There are white 
and deep - rose 
varieties. 


Cornish Heath 


Erica vagans 


Pink or 
white 


2 ft. 


vii-ix 




*Wintergreen 


Pyrola 

uniflora 


White 


6 in. 


vi-viii 




Wintergreen 


Pylora 

rotundifolia 


White 


6-10 in. 


vii-ix 




Wintergreen 


Pyrola media 


Wliite 


6-10 in. 


vii-ix 




Yevering Bells 


Pyrola 

secunda 


White 


4 in. 


vii 




Wintergreen 


Pyrola minor 


White 


6-10 in. 


vii-ix 





Primkose Family. Primulacea. 



a. Primrose i 


Primula veris 


Sulphur 


3 .5 in. 


iv, V 


f The ('owslip and 


b. Cowslip, 










Oxlip may be 


Paigle, Herb 










reckoned as 


Peter, Palsy- , 










racial varieties 


wort 










< of tlie common 


c. Oxlip, Poly. 










Primrose. The 


anthus ' 










varieties, single 
and double, are 
^ innumerable. 


Bird's Eye \ 


Primula 


Rosy lilac 


3-12 in. 


vi 




Mealy Primrose) 


farinosa 











245 



APPENDIX 



English Namea. 



Sowbread 



Yellow Pimpernel 



Creeping Jenny"! 
Moneywort ]- 

Herb Twopence J 

Marsh Loosestrife 



Yellow Loose- 
strife 

Star Flower 

Chickweed 

Wintergreen 



Botanical 
Name. 



Cyclamen 

europceum 

Lysimachia 

iiemorum 

Lysimachia 
mimmularia 



Lysimachia 
thyrsiflwa 

Lysimach ia 

vulgaris 

Trientalis 

europoea 



Rose or 
white 

Yellow 

Yellow 

Yellow 
Yellow 
White 



Height. 



3-4 in. 
Trailing 
Trailing 

1-3 in. 

2-4 in. 
4-8 in. 



Time of 
Flowering 



Moist soil. 



Periwinkle Family. Apocynacece. 



Large Periwinkle 
Periwinkle 



Vinca major 
Vinca minor 



Blue 



Blue, white 
or red 



1-2 ft. 
Trailer 



There is a white 
variety. 





Gentian Family. 


Geniianacece. 




Centaury -i 
Eartligall V 
Christ's Ladder J 


Erythrcea 
centaurium 


Bright pink 


4-6 in. 


v-ix 


There are several 
varieties. 


♦Marsh Gentian ) 
Wind Flower / 


Oentiana 
pjieumonanthe 


Sky blue 


1-2 ft. 


viii, ix 


Deep moist soil. 


*Spring Gentian 


Oentiana verna 


Gentian 
blue 


3 in. 


iv, V 


Likes lime. 


Yellow Wort 


Chlora 

perfoliata 


YeUow 


3-12 in. 


vii 


An annual. 


Buckbean i 
Marsh Trefoil ( 

Marsh Flower 


Menyanthes 

trifoliata 

LimnantAemum 
nymphceoides 


White, 
flushed 
pink 

Yellow 


1 ft. 
Floating 


V, vi 
vii, viii 


One of the loveliest 
of British wild 
flowers. A full 
bog plant. 



246 



APPENDIX C 

Phlox Family. Pdemmiacece. 



English Names. 


Botanical 
Name. 


Colour. 


Height. 


Time of ■, . 

Flowering Kemarks. 


Jacob's Ladder \ 
Greek Valerian 
Charity J 


Polemonium 
aencleum 


Blue or 
white 


1-3 ft. 


vi, vii 



BiNDWEUD Family. Conwlmlacece. 



Bearbind 
Hedge Bells 
Campanelle 

Bindweed 
Cornbind 

Sea Bindweed 
Sea Bells 



Convolvidus 

sepium 



Convolvulus 

arvensis 



Con volvuhts 
soldanella 



White 



Rose or 
white 

Pale pink 



Climber 


viiix 


Climber 


vii-ix 


Pros- 


vi-viii 


trate 





Plant in pure deep 
sand. 



Borage Family. Boraginem. 



Viper's Bugloss 
Purple Bugloss 



Lungwort 
Jerusalem Cow 
slip 

Oyster Plant 



.'ow- [■ 



Purple Gromwell 



Forget-me-not \ 
Scorpion Grass J 

Wood Forget- 1 
me-not !- 

Mouse Ear 

Alkanet 
Bugloss 

Green Alkanet 



Echium vulgare 

Echhirn 

violaceum 

Pvlmonaria 

officinalis 



Mertensia 

maritima 



Lithospermum 
purpureo- 
cmruleiim. 

Myosotis 

pa Inst r is 

Myosotis 

silr alien 



A nch itsa 

officinalis 

Anchusa 
sempervirens 



Bright blue 

Bluish 
purple 

Rose chang- 
ing to blue 



Pink chang- 
ing to sky 
blue 

Bluish 
purple 



Sky blue 
Sky blue 

Gentian blue 
Gentian blue 

247 



2-4 ft. 


vi-viii 


3-4 ft. 


vi-viii 


6-12 in. 


iv-vi 


Pros- 


V, vi 


trate 




Pros- 


vi 


trate 




6-12 in. 


vi-viii 


1-H ft. 


vi-viii 


2 ft. 


vi, vii 


H-2 ft. 


- 



A biennial. 
A biennial. 



Has several good 
varieties. 



In deep sand and 
grit. 



The white variety 
should never be 
grown. 



A biennial. 
A perennial. 



apim^:ni)ix i) 

NnariKirADK 1<'amii,v. Solavamc. 



lOiiuli"!! Niiim'H. 


Itotnnioal 
Nam«, 


Colour. 


HelgLt. 


Time of 
Flowering 


Remnrkf, 


llinliiiije 

Uw.tlc -1 
Dr.Hll^ Ninhl-I 

hIiiuIc 
I'.rllmloiilia J 


Ui/otoj/am'iu 

nit/i'T 

A triijxi 

Ik'HiiiIohiui 


Dull yellow, 
veinccl jmrplo 

J'iir|>liHli 
l.liic 


1-2 ft. 

1 ft. 


vi-vii 
vi-vii 


A poiHOIIUllH 

annual. 

A poiHoiiniiM 
))iTennial. 



Foxglove Family. Savphulwrmea. 



Great Mullein 
lla({ Taper 
.Iiipiter'H Stair 
Velvet Dock 

Dark Mullein 



Wliiti' Mullein 



Molli Miillciii 



Ildiirv Mnlleii: 



'J'onilllax 



Ivy TriailHftX 
Kenilwcu'tli Ivy 
Mother of Thou- 



KoNKlove 

S[iiki(l Speedwell 
KimIv .Speedwell 



VcrhiiHciit/i 

tlidfiiiiis 



Verbatcum 

ni</rum 

Verlxtscum 

lycknitia 

liliittariti 



I 'erliHiicnm 
}iidvcruli:ntum 



Linariii 

iHilijiirit 

LInuria 

a/mbalarut 



picrpurva 



Vrronicd 

.yiii-(il<i 



I 'aronica 

m.vatUi» 



rriniroHe 



Yell. ,n- Willi 
purple Ilia- 
riiciits 

Yelluw willi 
while tila- 
nientH 

Yellow with 
purple fila- 
niiuilH 

Yellow with 
white fila- 
uieutM 

< 'itron and 
<u'iinj;(^ 

Ijilac and 
white 



lied, purple, 
Hpotted, or 
white 



HriKht l.hu^ 
Hright blue 
248 



3-4 ft. 



3-4 ft. 

2-3 ft. 

3-4 ft. 

1-2 ft. 
Trailer 

3-5 ft. 

(I-IH in, 
(J-H in. 



Biennial. All the 
niulleinH are heat 
rained from Heed. 



PereriTiial. There is 
a white variety. 



vii, Vlll 

vii, viii 



Perennial. 



I'ieiinial. 



I'erennial. Found 
only in Kant 
Anjjiia. 

The vaiiety pcloria 
is very curious 
and Hhowy. 



A biennial. Seed 
of many beauti- 
ful varieties ean 



There iH a pink 
variety. 



APPENDIX C 

Lavender Family. Labtata, 



English Namiw. 


Botonionl 
Name. 


Colour. 


Height. 


Time of 
Flowering 


Koniorlu. 


Pell-a-iuoiiiitiiin / 
Brotlieiwort ' 


Thi/miui 

Korfii/llmn 


lioHV puilllc 


I'roH- 
triite 


vi-viii 


Tliore are many 
fine varietieH. 


Wimmlwort 


Stail,,/a 

ijennanir.a 


Rosy piu|)lc 


13 ft. 


vii, viii 




Buglu 


Ajuga reptaiu 


Blue 


4-6 in. 


v-vii 


Good in wliade : 
wortlileHH aUu- 
where. 



TnKiFr Family. I'lumhaijinece. 



Thrift 

Sea Oilliflower 



Armeria 



I'ufgan'a 



Pink 



3-6 in. 



Tlierii art' iTiiiiMon 
and wliiti- varii-- 
tien. 



BiHtort, \ 

Snakeroot / 

Clopse Knotweed 



Knotweed Family. Poh/gmacece. 

1-2 ft. 



historta 

I'olyijonum 
(iumelorum 



White or 
pink 

White 



Climlier 



Daphne Family. Thymeliaceoe. 



* Mezereon 



Daphrui 

Mezerium 



Pink, red or 2-4 ft. 
white 



Catkin Family. Armntaem. 



Bog Myrtle 

Sweetgale 

Candleberry 



Myrica dale 



InconHpicu- 



2.1 ft. v-vii 



Box 



SpuitOE Family. J'Ju/iliarlnMece. 
Green 3-16 ft. I iv 



lempen'iren 



249 



APPENDIX C 

Arum Family. Aroidea. 



i^^ngliHii NiiineH. 


liotunical 
Nbiiio. 


Colour. 


Hciglit. 


Time of 
Flowering 


Remarks. 


C'uckoopint •> 

Wake-rol)in 1 

LordH-aiiil- ( 

Liulies ' 


Ariim 

maculatum 


Purplish 
and green 


8-12 in. 


iv 


There is a white- 
veined variety. 
The scarlet 
berries are the 
showiest part of 
this plant. 





Watkh Plantain Family. Alimaceai. 




Flowering Rush 


Bntomus 

umbellat-its 


Kosy lilac 


3-4 ft. 


vi, vii 


In a diti-h or pond 
margin. 


Arrowliead 


Hiijfittiiria 
suyittifoliu 


White 




vii-ix 


There is a double- 
rtowered variety . 
An aquatic which 
can lie grown in 
moist border if 
started in water. 


Floating Plantain 


Allsma natans 


White and 


Fldiitinj,' 


vii, viii 








yellow 









Orchid Family. Orchidacece. 



Marsh Orchis 
Salep 

Hand Orchis 
Spotted Orchis 

Soldier Orchis 



Pyramid Orchis 

Long Pur))le8 I 
Slander- wort | 

Sweet Orcliia 
Butterfly Orchis 



Orchis latifolia I Purple 



Urchis 



maculata 



Orchis 

miliUiris 

Orchis 

pyramiddlis 

Orchis nuisculd 

Orchis 

conopseii 

Habenaria 

bifolia 



I'urple, lilac 
or white 

Lilac, 
spotted 
purple 

Rose 

Purple 

Deep rose 

Greenish 
white to 
ivory 

250 



1-3 ft. 


vi, vii 


6-18 in. 


v-vii 


1-2 ft. 


V 


1 ft. 


v-vii 


8-10 in. 


V 


8-10 hi. 


vi, vii 


8-12 in. 


vi, vii 



APPENDIX C 



English Namei. 


Botanioal 
Name. 


Colour. 


Height. 


Time of 
Flowering 


Remarlu. 


No En(,'lish 
name 

♦Lady's Sli|>|)er 


Cephalantluva 
yrandijlora 

Cephalant/iera 
rtdrra 

Cypripedium 
catceohu 


Cream 
Pink 

Chocolate 
and yellow 


l-H ft. 
1-li ft. 

Mi ft. 


vi 
vi, vii 

vi 


All but cxtini't in 
Britain. Our 
finest native 
orchid. 





Flag Family. 


Iridece. 






Yellow Iris ■> 
Sword Flag 
Orris J 


pseudttcoriti 


Yellow 


2-3 ft. 


v-vii 




Gladdon ^ 
Roast beef plant/ 


IrU 

fmtidittima 


Pale grey 
blue 


2-3 ft. 


v-vii 




•Corn Fla{{ i 
Sword Lily \ 


Oladiohiii 

communis 


Rosy 


li-2 ft. 


vi 


There are various 
Hlmdes from pur- 
plish to white. 


Spring Crocus 


Crocus vertim 


Deep violet 


4-6 in. 


ii, iii 


Parent of many 
garden varieties. 


Naked Crocus 


Crocut 

nudiJUtrui 


Violet 


4-8 in. 


ix, .X 





Daffodil Family. Amaryllidea. 



Daffodil ■> 
Lent Lily ■ 
Crow Bells J 


Narcissus 
pseiu/o narcissus 


Yellow 


1 ft. 


iii, iv 


There ai'e many 
varieties, double 
and single. 


Primrose Peerless 


ifarcisitua 

hiflonu 


White, with 
paleyellow 
centre 


1 ft. 


V 




Snowdrop ■» 

Fail- Maids of 
February J 


Oalanthus 

nivalis 


White and 
green 


6-9 in. 


i, ii, iii 


The double form 
should be rigor- 
ously excluded. 


Summer Snow- 


Ij«acoium 


White and 


l-ljft. 


V. 




flake 


oestivum 


green 









251 



APPENDIX C 





Lily Family. 


Liliacece. 






English Names. 


Botanical 
Name. 


Colour. 


Height. 


Time of 
Flowering 


Remarks. 


Solomon's Seal \ 
David's Harp J 


Polygonatum 
midtiflorum 


Greenish 
white 


2-3 ft. 


V, vi 




Lily - of - the - 
Valley 


Convallaria 

majalis 


White 


6-8 in. 


V, vi 




♦May Lily 


Smilacina 

bifolia 


White 


4-8 in. 


V, vi 




Butcher's Broom"! 
Box Holly [ 
Pettigrew J 


Rxiscus 

aculeatus 


Whitish 


2-3 ft. 


ii-iv 




Snake's Head \ Fritillaria 
Fritillary J meleagris 


Purple or 
white 


12-18 


iv, V 




*Wild Tulip 


Tulipa 

fylvestris 


Yellow 


1-2 ft. 


iv, V 




(No English name) 


Lloydia 

serotina 


White or 
yellow 


6-10 


vi 




Yellow Star-of- 
Bethlehem 


Gaged lutea 


Yellow 


6 in. 


iii-v 




Star - of - Bethle- 
hem 


Ornitkogalum 
umhellatum 


White 


6-9 in. 


v, vi 




Spiked Star-of-1 
Bethlehem [ 

French Sparrow- j 
grass J 


Ornitkogalum 
pyrenaicum 


Yellowish 
white 


If 2 ft. 


vi 




Spring Squill 


Scilla vema 


Grey blue 


4-8 in. 


V 




Wood Hyacinth"! 
Culverkeys y 
Bluebell (Eng.) | 
Crawtaes (Scot.)J 


SciUa nutaiu 


Blur 


9-18 in. 


ivv 


Many fine garden 
varieties, white, 
rose, and red. 


Starch Hyacinth 


Muacari 

racemosuvi 


Dark blue 


6-10 in. 


V 




Bog Asphodel 


Narthecium 
ossifraga 


Golden yel- 
low 


6-8 in. 


vii, viii 


Moist peat. 


Saffron 
Naked Ladies 


Colchicum 
autumnale 


Bosy mauve 


6 in. 


ix, X 


Many varieties, 
single and double, 
white and col- 
oured. 



GLASGOW : PRINTED AT THE UNIVERSITY PRBSS BV ROBERT MACLEHOSB AND CO. LTD. 



DEC 1 ^908 



